Caddie tries to hide 15th club in bushes

Here is a story about a European Tour player’s caddie, who dug a hole and then proceeded to dig it much deeper.

During the opening round of this week’s BMW Championship, José Manuel Lara’s caddie realised there were 15 clubs in the bag. Keeping tabs on the number of clubs in the golf bag is generally accepted as being the caddie’s responsibility, but there is a two-stroke penalty for the golfer for each hole played with more than 14 clubs in the bag, up to a maximum of four strokes.

According to the Irish Golf Desk, here is what happened. Lara’s caddie, Matías Vinson, noticed that there were 15 clubs in the golf bag on the second hole and decided to take matters into his own hands by attempting to lose the club in thick bushes.

Lara’s playing partners suspected something suspicious was going on when they saw the caddie heading into the bushes with the golf bag. When confronted over what he was doing, the caddie confessed and immediately expressed regret over his actions.

It seems that Lara had no idea what was going on and only found out as they were wandering down the second fairway, and was immediately penalised four shots.

Following his round of 73 (a 69 would have had him in contention at the BMW Championship) the offence was deemed serious enough to warrant a disqualification despite Lara being cleared of any direct involvement of the incident.

In stroke play the penalty, regardless of the number of excess clubs carried, is two strokes for each hole at which any breach occurred, with a maximum penalty per round of four strokes.

Not surprisingly, the caddie’s services are no longer required.

One thought on “Caddie tries to hide 15th club in bushes

  • Amazing to think this still happens at the professional level. I would also like to think though that the player would also double check this before they teed off.

    Reply

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