Golf fans are frustrated after Austin Eckroat was left with a par on the 11th hole during the final round of The Players Championship in Florida on Sunday.
Eckroat was struggling when he arrived at the par-5 11th hole, but it looked like he was going to be saved when he picked up a birdie when his 20-footer started curling behind the cup. However, the golf ball rolled slowly towards the cup before sitting in a precarious position on the edge of it.
Eckroat and playing partner Joel Dahmen crouched over the ball, staring at it intently before it finally fell in almost 40 seconds later. While it elicited a cheer from the crowd, Eckroat was penalized.
This is because according to rule 13.3a, a player is allowed “reasonable” time to reach the hole but can only wait 10 seconds to wait and see if the ball drops in. So while Eckroat’s putt wound up in the hole, as it was classed as being “at rest”, a stroke was added to his score and it was counted as a par.
Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
A video was posted to X (formerly Twitter) by the PGA Tour X account of the events that transpired on Sunday.
“Since the ball took longer than 10 seconds to drop, a stroke was added to Austin Eckroat’s score and was counted as a par,” the caption reads. At the time of writing, it had been viewed 1 million times.
However, people online aren’t happy with this rule, with many taking to the comments to express their frustration.
Newsweek emailed a spokesperson at PGA Tour for comment Monday.
“The ball never stopped oscillating and was therefore not at rest for >10 seconds. Bad call,” one person wrote.
“The ball was never not moving.. @pga just wants us to hate them at this point with decisions like this,” said another.
“Daft rule. The ball left his putter face and went in. The time taken is irrelevant,” someone else wrote.
“It looks like the ball never stopped moving? Or at least moves enough every 10 seconds to show that it’s not fully come to rest,” a fourth person wrote, to which someone else replied: “It doesn’t matter (that may not make sense but that’s the rule).”
Despite the backlash to the rule, some support the decision.
“Well, it fell when they were walking around near it. Vibration, pressing down on the ground changing the slope. That can do it,” one X user commented.
“After the 10 seconds, ball is considered at rest, regardless if it’s oscillating or not. Ruling is correct,” said another.
A third added: “A rules a rule. You can argue that all that walking around near the hole (I count at least 3 people walking around) can cause subtle vibration and then the ball falls in.”
Other golfers besides Eckroat have violated Rule 13.3.a over the past few years. It happened to Lee Hodges at the 2023 PGA Championship, Seong-Hyeon Kim at the 2021 CJ Cup and Si Woo Kim at the 2021 RBC Heritage.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.