Sergio Garcia chips in from four feet for par: video

Sergio Garcia is forced to chip over a spike mark left in the green by someone’s golf shoe.

Sergio Garcia recently played a golf shot from a tree, this week he features in the ‘weird shot’ videos from the PGA Tour once again.

The PGA Tour Wells Fargo Championship has created a stir because of the poor state of the greens at Quail Hollow and lead to spate of withdrawals from notable players even before the tournament began. For those who are part of the field, many of them aren’t exactly pleased with the state of the golf course as Sergio Garcia found out this morning.

Garcia found himself with a four foot putt for par on the 3rd hole at Quail Hollow, but found a big spike mark between his ball and the hole. Faced with an unpredictable bumpy putt, Garcia left the putter in the bag and opted to chip the ball over the mark and into the hole.

It conjures up images of old school golf when a ‘stymie‘ was part of the game. The difference being that a golfer was sometimes forced to chip over an opponents golf ball on the green in matchplay (pre-1952) rather than a mark on the green.

He made it look easy and was certainly one way of highlighting just how bad the greens are at Quail Hollow, and reminding everyone of one of the more ridiculous rules in golf – you cannot repair marks made by shoes or spikes on the green.

You wonder whether a local rule allowing their repair may have been a wise move this week.