On Friday morning, as Wyndham Clark played the par-4 3rd hole, the sirens from the rules police reverberated across Bay Hill and on social media.
No, Wyndham Clark didn’t commit any wrongdoing at Arnold Palmer Invitational
Those attacking Wyndham Clark for violating the rules during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational are simply wrong.
Jack Milko has been playing golf since he was five years old. He has yet to record a hole-in-one, but he did secure an M.A. in Sports Journalism from St. Bonaventure University.
Golf fans slammed Clark for taking relief from an embedded ball in the fairway, labeling him a ‘cheater,’ among other diatribes. Others felt he should have received a two-stroke penalty after seeing the replay. But the video shows his ball returning to his original pitch mark, thus negating any question about whether or not he should have taken relief.
PGA Tour officials agreed, and released a statement shortly after Clark took relief from the 3rd fairway.
“After reviewing ShotLink video of Wyndham Clark’s tee shot on the third hole during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, the PGA TOUR Rules Committee determined that the ball returned to its own pitch mark, which entitled Clark to free relief.”
But let’s say Clark’s ball came to rest in a pitch mark that was not his. Given how soft the fairways were at Bay Hill were on Friday, this could have been a real possibility.
Yet, you must put yourself in Clark’s shoes on the tee box and from the fairway. How could he have known that his ball landed in anyone’s pitch mark besides his own? It’s not like Clark is watching the PGA Tour Live broadcast while playing. His ball had a heap of mud and was obviously embedded, so he did what any other player would have done: taken appropriate relief.
“Didn’t know there was any confusion obviously when I’m playing,” Clark said after.
“When we hit it I was asking for it to stop. We never saw it bounce. Then we get up there and it’s in a plugged lie. My ball was covered with mud. So we took relief, didn’t think anything of it, and, yeah.”
Clark began Friday’s second round atop the leaderboard at 5-under par and opened with a birdie on the 1st hole. He stood at 6-under for the championship when this incident occurred, and wound up finishing at that number at the end of the day. He made three more birdies, all of which came on the back nine, but a double bogey on the 15th hole soured his day. He pushed his tee-shot out-of-bounds, which led the 2023 U.S. Open champion to re-load from the tee and pencil in a six on his score card.
“That hole’s very tough,” Clark said.
“I was pissed off with the tee shot.”
He wound up holing a 21-footer for his double-bogey, which led to a fist-pump.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever fist pumped a double bogey,” Clark added.
“Any shot is important. I don’t fist pump that much, but to me it just was more of like an internal thing, like Let’s go, and gave me kind of some momentum for the last three holes.”
He bounced back with a birdie at the benign par-5 16th but failed to get up-and-down for par at the difficult par-3 17th. After closing with a par on the famous 18th, Clark’s score totaled a 1-under 71. He now trails Irishman Shane Lowry by two strokes at the 36-hole mark.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
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