Ryder Cup rival spots rule break that leaves major champ mad with official
Matt Fitzpatrick pulled up his fellow competitor Collin Morikawa at last week's Hero World Challenge, after the American's caddie used a spirit level on the practice green and made hand-written notes in his yardage book.
Morikawa was handed a two-shot penalty heading into Sunday's final, but was left unimpressed with the ruling. Ahead of Sunday's action, Morikawa's caddie Jonathan Jakovac used pulled out a spirit level on the practice area to acquire read numbers for the two-time major champion.
In doing so the pair did not break any rules, but the decision to then use these readings on the fourth hole during Saturday's third round ensured the former Open champion had two shots added to his score.
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It was Ryder Cup rival and playing partner Fitzpatrick who alerted the offence to PGA Tour officials, after overhearing a discussion between Morikawa and Jakovac. "I met with the caddie to explore whether there was any breach," the Tour’s chief referee, Stephen Cox said per The Guardian.
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"After reviewing the documentation within the yardage book and the formulation of a putting system/chart, which in itself is not necessarily a breach of the rules, the manner in which you obtain that information and develop that chart is super-key. That’s why this rule is very complex in nature.”
Morikawa was not impressed with the punishment, and the handling of the situation by Cox, who informed the American of his penalty during his fourth round warm-up. “From our understanding it was fine to use a level on the practice green and see how putts break and write that down. Obviously it’s not," he said.
Collin Morikawa was handed a two-shot penalty on Sunday (AP)“Stephen said apparently to JJ this morning that it was a grey area in all this. Why are there grey areas? There shouldn’t be grey areas in the rules, right? That’s what rules are for. I was a little mad at Stephen. He told us to meet him in the locker room.
"I was waiting in there for around five minutes and he didn’t show up and this was midway through my warm-up. If you are going to tell me some news, I think you should show up on time.” Fitzpatrick himself admitted there was no bad blood behind his rule-break reported, and it came more out of curiosity after he was previously told he was unable to use a similar read technique called AimPoint.
"“I wanted to use AimPoint earlier this year,” the Englishman claimed “I spoke to my putting coach, Phil Kenyon, about it. He told me that he was pretty certain I can’t write the numbers down or use the AimPoint numbers. So I didn’t do it.
“Then obviously yesterday it happened and I asked Coxy just to clarify what the situation was. I asked the question and he was like: ‘Well, now you’ve asked the question, I need you to tell me what’s going on.’ That was it. It’s nothing personal. Whether it was Tiger Woods or whoever, it’s just I wanted to know because I would have used it earlier this year.”
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