‘Can you do that?’ Breaking the rules of LIV Golf is confusing, then surprising
Jon Rahm is a great host. And you’re in that position after three hops, the last hole.
But, he said, it was what went down immediately before all that that impressed him the most. And it baffled Bryson DeChambeau.
“Well, it was shocking, obviously,” she said.
The sequence occurred on Saturday in the third round of LIV Golf’s Adelaide event, after Rahm went left with his tee shot on the 18th hole of Grange Golf Club, and in the box near the 10th hole. He shouted. He covered his head. He shouted again. Rahm arrived two holes behind leader DeChambeau, who was also in his group, and was on the 18th fairway with his second shot.
A place Rahm is almost perfect for.
Doing so required breaking the rules – and his memory. On Friday, Rahm also went left on the 18th and circled the 10th box, but his shot back to the green was blocked by the fence and deemed a temporary immovable barrier, which, due to the rules, he was released from. That put him a few yards to the left of the fairway, and, from there, he jumped and hit the birds.
On Saturday, it all happened again, only with more theatrics.
Rahm went to his ball, spoke to the rules official, then took his ball and walked to the left corner of the fairway. A few yards ahead of him, DeChambeau was shown by an FS1 camera asking a one-word question — “What?” – before bawling his eyes out. Rahm was about 40 yards behind DeChambeau, and was now directly behind him.
“I didn’t know that was going to happen, so that was a lot of a shock,” DeChambeau said after the round. “It was like, what the hell, can you do that?
“That’s all it was, in the end. I didn’t think much of it other than that. … But no, I didn’t know that was there, and I hope that might work in my favor sometime. I’ve had a really bad shot, by the way, too. It was just a miracle at the time, and I’d say, you know, I’ve done worse than that, a lot.”
As mentioned in the first section of this report, there was more.
After his draw, Rahm made two eagles. And after DeChambeau’s performance, they will enter Sunday’s final round tied for the lead.
“Well, I’d say it might be the most amazing thing I’ve done all week,” Rahm said, “which is to pull it that far to the left twice, hit the cart lane twice, and finish 10th twice. The odds of that are very low.”
“Then luckily we get TIO relief, obviously, I knew since yesterday, so I didn’t worry too much, and I knew where I was going to land, a very good angle on that pin, too. Actually it was the best place to be very good of all the pins of that distance.
“It was a really good number, 62 feet in the air, trying to stop it about six, seven times short. He obviously did it very well, and everything else you saw. I really don’t expect to make it.
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