Here's mud on your ball, kids
PGA's decision to play it down on saturated Quail Hollow riles players: 'It’s kind of stupid'
Mud balls are always an issue when players can’t clean them in fairways (David Cannon/Getty Images)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The proclamation was delivered at 6:14 p.m. on Wednesday evening and the verdict was final.
“We do not plan to play preferred lies,” the PGA of America said in a statement. “The playing surfaces are outstanding and are drying by the hour. We are mowing the fairways this evening.”
Roughly the same time on the eve of the 107th PGA Championship, mowers were rolling along the highest crest of the 16th fairway, pushing walls of water four inches high in front of the blades.
About 18 hours later, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and defending PGA champion Xander Schauffele fired consecutive balls from the middle of that same fairway on 16 long, left and into the water behind the 16th green, leading to the devil’s mark of 6-6-6 on the scorecards of the threesome ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in the world.
Would seem that a couple of those guys would not agree with the “outstanding” assessment regarding the status of the playability of the surfaces doused by more than four inches of water in the lead-up to the PGA.
“Then on 16, I hit in the middle of the fairway, you’ve got mud on your ball, and it’s tough to control where it goes after that,” said Scheffler.
Said Schauffele: “Had a ridiculous mud ball there on 16 with Scottie. We were in the middle of the fairway, and I don’t know, we had to aim right of the grandstands probably. I’m not sure. I aimed right of the bunker and it whipped in the water and Scottie whipped it in the water, as well. It is what it is, and a lot of guys are dealing with it, but it’s just unfortunate to be hitting good shots and to pay them off that way. It’s kind of stupid.”
Both players ended up having a lot to say about the subject, and with their stature in the game their voices carry some weight even if the word is that places like Augusta National prefer players not mention the term “mud ball” in order to bury the issue in the sand. It provided some reasonable insight on the issue despite their clear irritability on Thursday.
“I’m not the only guy. I’m just in front of the camera.” Schauffele said. “I wouldn’t want to go in the locker room because I’m sure a lot of guys aren’t super happy with sort of the conditions there. I feel like the grass is so good, there is no real advantage to cleaning your ball in the fairway. The course is completely tipped out. It sucks that you’re kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway.”
Said Scheffler: “It’s one of those deals where it’s frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it’s going to go. I understand it’s part of the game, but there’s nothing more frustrating for a player. You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision all of a sudden you have absolutely no control over where that golf ball goes.
“But I don’t make the rules. I just have to deal with the consequences of those rules. I did a good job of battling back today and not letting a bad break like that, which cost me a couple shots, get to me. Did a good job battling after that and posting a decent score.”
Scottie Scheffler watches his mud ball sail left into the water on 16 (Maddie Meyer/PGA of America)
That said, Scheffler was “not really surprised at all” and expected the PGA of America to do exactly what it did — as have every committee in charge of every major championship round except for the PGA in the final round of the 2016 PGA at Baltusrol when it broke protocol and allowed preferred lies (a.k.a. lift, clean and replace).
Scheffler had one more thing to say on the subject — and he made the most of it after declaring it would be his last comments about mud balls.
“This is going to be the last answer that I give on playing it up or down. I mean, I don’t make the rules,” he said.
“I think when you’re looking at the purest forms of golf, like if you’re going to go play links golf, there’s absolutely no reason on a links golf course you should play the ball up. It doesn’t matter how much rain they get. The course could be flooded under water and the ball is still going bounce somehow because of the way the turf is and the ground underneath the turf.
“In American golf it’s significantly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand-capped, there’s going to be a lot of mud on the ball, and that’s just part of it. When you think about the purest test of golf, I don’t personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for.
“On a golf course as good of conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up because most of the lies you get out here are all really good. So I understand how a golf purist would be, ‘oh, play it as it lies.’ But I don’t think they understand what it’s like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden due to a rules decision that is completely taken away from us by chance.
“In golf, there’s enough luck throughout a 72-hole tournament that I don’t think the story should be whether or not the ball is played up or down. When I look at golf tournaments, I want the purest, fairest test of golf, and in my opinion maybe the ball today should have been played up.
“But like I said, I don’t make the rules. I deal with what the rules decisions are. I could have let that bother me today when you got a mud ball and it cost me a couple shots. It cost me possibly two shots on one hole, and if I let that bother me, it could cost me five shots the rest of the round. But today I was proud of how I stayed in there, didn’t let it get to me and was able to play some solid golf on a day in which I was a bit all over the place and still post a score.”
Neither player expects the decision to play it down or the issue of mud balls to change this week, and it is more than likely to play a significant role in the eventual outcome of the tournament.
“The mud balls are going to get worse,” Schauffele said. “That wasn’t your question, but they’re going to get worse as the place dries up. They’re going to get in that perfect cake zone to where it’s kind of muddy underneath and then picking up mud on the way through. I mean, you just keep – I don’t know, maybe hit it a little bit lower off the tee, but then unfortunately the problem with hitting it low off the tee is the ball doesn’t carry or roll anywhere, so then you sacrifice distance. It’s a bit of a crapshoot.
“A lot of the same. If I can keep hitting the driver in the fairway, I’ll be fine.”