Rules situation stumps Tour pro. Then playing partner wise-cracks 3 words 

Daniel Berger? He sounded stumped. 

But Harris English? 

He was seemingly prepared. A potential line had been put on a tee for him, so to speak, and, on national TV, he swung away.  

“Did you hear what Harris’ initial reaction was?” analyst Johnson Wagner said on the Golf Channel broadcast.

If you were watching Thursday’s first round of the PGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Championship, you might’ve. To set things up, the group of Berger, English and Tom Hoge had just hit approaches into the par-4 7th at El Cardonal at Diamante when Berger, while reaching down to mark his ball, spotted that the wind nudged it forward. What now? Would he be penalized? Where would he play from next? 

Berger called over to English, and mics picked up this exchange: 

“Harry, I went to mark my ball …”

English paused for a second, then deadpanned three words. 

“Four shot penalty.”

Good job, everyone. On the broadcast, Wagner laughed, as did colleagues Terry Gannon and Billy Ray Brown. No, Berger wouldn’t be docked four strokes. But what’s the call here? 

After English’s line, Berger called for an official, whom he told that as he went to mark, “the wind gusted and it moved it like this far,” before asking where to play next: old spot or new. The official told him the latter, and from there, Berger two-putted for a par, doing so penalty-free. 

There are a few parts to the rule in play here (Rule 13.1d (2)). If Berger had already marked his ball, lifted it, put it back down and then the wind moved it, he’d have to move it back to where it had originally been (and could do so penalty-free). But since he hadn’t yet marked it, he was allowed to play it from the new spot. 

There’s a bit more. On the broadcast, it was originally thought that Berger had accidentally moved his ball himself as he went to mark it, and had that been the case, the ruling would’ve been slightly different, though also without penalty. Rule 13.1d (1) says “there is no penalty if the player, opponent or another player in stroke play accidentally moves the player’s ball or ball-marker on the putting green,” and that the player must then “replace the ball on its original spot (which if not known must be estimated) or place a ball-marker to mark that original spot.”

“So since he hadn’t marked his ball already,” Wagner said on the broadcat, “he’s going to play it where the wind gusted it. Had he marked it and went to replace it and it gusted, he would have moved it back.”