Clearly, I don’t follow pro golf like I once did: I never heard of this guy (at first I thought his name was the second row on my keyboard). Now I think I may write in his name for President.
Playing in the PGA’s $100 million Tour Championship, (never heard of that tournament, either) at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Sahith Reddy Theegala, an American professional golfer from Orange, California, called a rules infraction on himself, costing him two strokes. The self-reporting ended up preventing Theegala from tying for third place, and may have cost him five million dollars.
He called a two-shot penalty on himself early in the third round of the Tour Championship when he sensed that he might have grazed or moved a few grains of sand during his backswing in a fairway bunker shot. Television replays did not definitively show that any such violation had occurred and nobody else noticed it. This was literally an example of the old saw, “Ethics is what you do when nobody’s looking.”
Theegala gets ethics, specifically honesty and integrity. He immediately summoned the other player in his group, Xander Schauffele, and a PGA Tour rules official. Theegala was hoping that because touching the sand didn’t improve his lie or the shot, it wouldn’t incur a penalty, but he was determined to find out on way or the other. No, he was informed, intent isn’t required for this to be an infraction. If his club touched the sand as he tried to make the swing, it was a indeed a two-stroke penalty.
Since the replays did not show anything definitive, officials were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Theegala, however, had no doubt.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” he told sportswriters afterward. “I was describing the situation—no matter what the outcome was, I needed to know what the actual rule was….it felt like I moved the sand. It was sitting in my mind.”
The golfer didn’t have too bad a weekend despite his self-inflicted whistle-blowing: the third-place finisher, those two penalty strokes ahead, got $12.5 million in bonus money but Theegala still won $7.5 million.
And maybe a write-in vote for President of the United States from a discouraged ethicist…
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Pointer: Michael
[Bonus Ethics Challenge! Compare this story to this issue.]
Ethics Alarms 
If he’s a natural-born US citizen of at least 35 years, he might get a second vote. I love stories like this!
I praise him for hi s honesty and integrity. But can any of you who pkay golf explain the rule to this non player. How does ” grazing or moving a few grains of sand on the back swing” effect the out come of the stroke?
I am recovering golfer – I haven’t played in more than 30 years. Golf is one of only two things I ever attempted in which the more time, effort and money I threw at it, the worse I got.*
The rules state that your club cannot make contact with the sand except to make contact with the ball. The theory, as I understand it, is that making contact with the sand can alter the lie of the ball – sometimes to the benefit of the player, sometimes to the player’s detriment. Either way, roolz is roolz and no contact is permitted.
And bravo to this fine sportsman!
*For the record, the other one is fly fishing
thank you, i under stand the “roolz”, what I don’t understand is the physics.
The last time I played golf was while stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas (c 1974). I hit the ball off the tee, it struck the only tree on the course and richocheted behind me. I hocked the clubs on my way to the officer’s club where they were having specially priced Harvy Wallbangers.
More basic, you cannot ground the club when the ball is in a hazard. A sand trap is a hazard. You cannot touch the ground with the club until you swing at the ball to strike it. Other hazards can be marked with a red line such as near a water hazard. If you are on the bank of a water hazard but not in the water but on the water side of the red line, you cannot ground the club or take practice swings in the grass or dirt.
You sometimes see players take practice swings in deep rough (away from the ball) – deep rough is not a hazard and grounding the club is allowed. In a hazard the club can only touch the ground during the swing to strike the ball.
If you ground the club in a hazard you get the penalty.
Update: Since 2019 there is no longer a penalty for grounding the club in a penalty area (formerly called a hazard).
It is still a penalty to touch the ground in a bunker (sand trap)
Under Rules 12.2a and 12.2b, the player is allowed to touch or move loose impediments in a bunker and is generally allowed to touch the sand with a hand or club; but a limited prohibition continues so that the player must not:
That’s why I linked to the misaddressed envelope quiz.
Sahith Theegala is very accomplished and highly regarded by his peers and the tour media. He had a personal posse of about thirty family members and close friends and supporters following him all four days at East Lake this weekend. He’s as American as apple pie, very personable and articulate and of Indian (or some other South Asian) descent. His father is an absolute favorite of the golf broadcasters. Just a neat kid and a heck of a professional, touring golfer from a nice family.