RULES OF GOLF / Lahiri disqualified for practising bunker shot during a round

Here is a nice reminder about the rules of golf relating to practising during a round.

We’ve already talked about Jordan’s Spieth’s bizarre one-hole disqualification during last week’s Presidents Cup so we thought we should just cover the other major rules incident involving India’s Anirban Lahiri.

Lahiri played a bunker on the second hole of his four-ball match with Charl Schwartzel, against the American pairing of Charley Hoffman and Kevin Chappell. the bunker shot didn’t turn out so well as you can see from the video below – and Lahiri decided to pick it up and just practice it again.

The thing is you can’t practice a bunker shot during a round.

.@anirbangolf hit a practice shot out of a bunker.

He is therefore disqualified from the next hole.#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/IlX594EAIB

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 29, 2017

Rule 7-2 specifically deals with this:

7-2. During Round

A player must not make a practice stroke during play of a hole.
Between the play of two holes a player must not make a practice stroke, except that he may practice putting or chipping on or near:
a. the putting green of the hole last played,
b. any practice putting green, or
c. the teeing ground of the next hole to be played in the round,
provided a practice stroke is not made from a hazard and does not unduly delay play (Rule 6-7).

So because Lahiri played from a hazard, in this case from a bunker and the penalty in match play is loss of hole (in stroke play it is two strokes). But because the hole had already been played Lahiri was disqualified and forced to sit out the next hole.

Playing partner Charl Schwartzel managed to halve the next hole with a par of his own. But it was one of the few times these two players broke even during their round, eventually losing to the American pair 6&5.