Groundhog Day was Friday, and the groundhog apparently didn’t fix his divot.
With Wyndham Clark wheeling and dealing, 11 under through 15 holes Saturday at Pebble Beach Golf Links, Clark yanked his tee shot at the par-4 16th hole and his ball took one bounce in the rough before settling in a juicy lie.
What happened next likely saved Clark’s chances at a historic round.
When cameras returned to Clark, he was taking relief. Broadcasters initially speculated that Clark was receiving a free drop because of a plugged lie, but they quickly clarified that Clark was actually benefitting from abnormal course conditions, specifically a burrowing animal hole.
A pile of dirt was shown close to Clark’s ball, and PGA Tour rules official Mark Dusbabek explained that Clark was entitled to the drop under Rule 16.1, which says that a player gets free relief from “interference by animal holes, ground under repair, immovable obstructions or temporary water” and that interference exists when the ball touches the abnormal course condition or when the condition “physically interferes with your area of intended stance or area of intended swing.”
As Clark later explained: “We were right on the edge of it to where it was in my way, and I was essentially in the start of that animal burrowing hole. I brought the officials over to make sure because obviously the ground’s very saturated. … I said, ‘What do you think this is?’ He said, ‘Yeah, that does not look like a divot or any sort of footprint;, it was definitely something that was going under the surface, so that’s why we got the drop there.”
“Wyndham had it right,” Dusbabek said on the broadcast.
Wyndham Clark is dialed today. pic.twitter.com/LuRKZ1WxjT
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 3, 2024
Clark dropped into a much more favorable lie and then hit his approach to 10 feet. He missed the birdie roll by inches, but the par allowed him to later card 12-under 60, a Pebble Beach competitive course record, after a par-birdie finish.
At 17 under, Clark also leads the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am by a shot through 54 holes.