Viktor Hovland was your 54-hole leader at the Tour Championship, but after Scottie Scheffler rocketed up the leaderboard on Sunday, Hovland had to settle for a runner-up finish.
Hovland got beaten, fair and square — he shot 72 to Scheffler’s 66 — but you shouldn’t feel too bad for him. Due to the season-finale’s $40 million purse, Hovland still won $5 million for finishing second. (It’s a good gig if you can get it.)
Still, Hovland was thisclose to falling further down the leaderboard and losing some precious cash.
Hovland’s second shot landed in the greenside bunker of the par-4 13th hole on Sunday at East Lake in Atlanta, and he splashed out, failed to save par from 18 feet and settled for bogey. But it was almost worse. A replay showed Hovland’s wedge get dangerously close to touching the sand behind his ball before he played his shot from the bunker, and if he had grounded his club in the sand it would have violated rule 12.2b and been a two-stroke penalty.
The CBS broadcast showed replays of the shot and brought in PGA Tour rules official Mark Dusbabek to break it down.
“We have received a couple of inquiries about this,” Dusbabek said, “but we’ve looked at this video and it does not appear to us that he has touched the sand, so would not be a penalty in this case.”
It turned into somewhat of a controversial (and consequential) ruling. CBS tweeted a slow-motion clip of the bunker shot that’s been viewed more than 1.4 million times in less than 24 hours, and opinions flooded in.
“Oof,” analyst Trevor Immelman said on the broadcast when watching the replay. “That looks pretty close right there.”
As for the consequential part, Hovland wasn’t penalized two strokes, which meant his 13-under finish was never changed to 11 under. If it would have been, Ryan Gerard would have finished solo second and Hovland would have dropped into an eight-way tie for third, which paid about $1.9 million.
That’s what you call a $3 million ruling.
“Obviously pretty disappointed with how I played today, just with the position that I was at,” said Hovland, who was not asked about the ruling post-round. “I only would have needed one-under par to force a playoff. If I just had my normal game, my normal ball-striking from the previous years, I think I take away this tournament. That’s obviously disappointing, but at the same time, it’s the way that I was able to have a chance to really win this event after being in some big holes throughout the season.”
