Darren Clarke Goes Off After Being Penalized On Senior Tour

The Champions Tour houses many of the golf names of our past that were stars back in their day on the PGA TOUR but we often do not see much news come out of the Senior Tour. But Darren Clarke is providing a lot of talk coming out of his event this week.

Clarke is a well-known name around golf circles as he had a successful stint on the PGA TOUR and European Tour and was also a captain of the European Ryder Cup team. Now over the age required to participate in the Champions Tour, Clarke participated in his first event this week at the Notre Dame’s Warren Course hoping to get off to a strong start but that’s the exact opposite of what happened.

Clarke was performing well at the event when he went to the 10th hole at one under. Clarke then hit an errant tee shot that ended up in the rough around a few trees. Once he got to where his ball was, he noticed that there was a birdhouse that would be affecting the line of his shot.

According to the rules, that is an obstruction that Clarke should be able to remove, but the incident turned into a whole ordeal for the Northern Irishman.

Once Clarke saw that the birdhouse was in the way, he immediately called over a rules official while his caddie removed the birdhouse from the area so Clarke could proceed, which is allowed under the USGA’s Rule 15.2 on movable obstructions. But the problem was that Clarke technically was not able to move the birdhouse because it was defined as an immovable object.

According to Rule 16-1, “a player only receives relief when a) the player’s ball touches or is in or on an abnormal course condition b) abnormal course condition physically interferes with the player’s area of intended stance or area of intended swing c) or only when the ball is on the putting green, an abnormal course condition on or off the putting green intervenes on the line of play.” So basically, Clarke was not able to get relief for the shot, resulting in a later penalty that gave him a triple bogey instead of a normal bogey.

Embed from Getty Images

The crazy part about this is that the rules official that Clarke called over did not stop him from moving the birdhouse at the time and the penalty was issued after his round. It’s an unfortunate situation that Clarke was held up on but in the future, it may do the USGA well to clarify the rules on movable objects so this does not happen in an event where there is even more on the line.

Cover Image Via Instagram