It happened on Tour: Take this quiz of golf rules incidents and see whom they affected
Ian Poulter once accidentally threw his ball in the water before completing a hole - remember what happened next?
QUESTION:
A player marks his ball on the putting green in stroke play and throws it to his caddie who misses it and the ball lands in a stream.
If the ball cannot be recovered is the player penalised if he substitutes a ball and completes the hole?
FEATURE: 6 MOST COMMON BROKEN RULES IN GOLF
ANSWER:
The player would be penalised two strokes under Rule 15-2 as he is not permitted to substitute the ball in play when lifting the ball on the putting green (Rule 16-1b).
This happened to Ian Poulter on the 4th hole in the final round of the Players Championship in 2004. Fortunately for him his fitness coach, Kam Bhabra, was on hand to strip down to his boxers and recover the ball for him, not thinking at the time of the threat of any nearby alligators.
His act saved Poulter $21,212 in prize money.
