Wyndham Clark has questioned one of golf's most difficult-to-police rules after almost being caught out last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The 2023 US Open champion's drive ended up in its pitch mark on the 3rd hole during round two of last week's tournament at Bay Hill, after it landed, bounce up in the air and fell back into the indentation.
The ball bouncing up initially caused confusion on social media as some believed that his ball may have ended up in someone else's pitch mark - which would have been a 'play it as it lies' situation.
Most golfers know that they're allowed free relief from their own pitch marks, but rarely encounter a situation where a ball ends up in someone else's.
Thankfully for Clark, his drive was confirmed to have finished in his own pitch mark and the free drop he took from it was fully within the rules.
Rule 16.3.a states: "Your ball is embedded only if it is in its own pitch-mark made as a result of your previous stroke and part of your ball is below the level of the ground."
A week on at the Players Championship, where he finished T2nd last year, the American revealed he was surprised to hear that the incident was even an incident at all after his round and that he wasn't trying to cheat.
He does think that the rule is "complicated" and admitted that he would have been frustrated if he received a penalty.
"Obviously I found out after the round. I have a few comments on this rule in general. So I approached scoring and they approached me like, hey, there's something that's going to come up in media about what happened on 3," he said.
"I was like, on 3? I hit it in the middle of the fairway, hit it on the green and two-putt. I'm like, what are you talking about?
"He goes, it's your drop. I was like, what do you mean, did I do an improper drop? He said, well, we didn't know if you were plugged. Long story short is you're okay.
"Then they showed me the video, and then it leads me to thinking, well, how are we supposed to know. We were 300 some yards away. The ball just hit - we didn't see the ball bounce from our distance, and we get up there and it's plugged. How was I supposed to know?
"No one told us. So my frustration was that if I did get stroked, how is that my fault when no one told me that I rolled into something, if I did roll into someone else's pitch mark. That's one of those rules in golf where it's like, why are we making this so complicated?
"I can't see that, and if the volunteers don't tell me and I get stroked for something that I didn't know happened, it kind of seems unfair.
"But I am glad that it was correct because I wasn't trying to cheat by any means. We just walked up, ball was plugged, took an embedded ball rule."
Wyndham Clark responds to ball drop controversy from Bay Hill:“I wasn’t trying to cheat by any means. We walked up, ball was plugged, took an imbedded ball rule.”Side note: It’s wild how the term “stroked” has become mainstream. pic.twitter.com/OJNRLMdBUPMarch 12, 2025
Clark makes his seventh start of the year this week in Florida, having posted a best result of T15 at The Sentry in his opening event.
The World No.8 finished T22 at Bay Hill last week.
