Russell Henley’s honesty cost him dearly. But you don’t have to be surprised

Pro Golf is contested on such large basis, but so often judged in such small cases. Take, for example, 6 feet, 8-inch Putt Tommy Fleetwood lost and 5-foot Putt, 8-inch KEEGAN BRADLEY did. The first may have hit a ball sign. The latter certainly did not. The passenger championship seemed to be falling down.

This, and Russell Henley Penaltia Called Friday afternoonacross the property, out of attention from cameras and playing partners. Henley’s ball moved part of an inch when it didn’t, but it moved, and he believes it was the reason he did.

Perhaps you caught the end of Henley’s week, where he needed birds to give himself a chance to win the travelers and miraculously withdrew from the Greenside Rough to make it happen. Bradley’s Birdie Putti was the only thing that kept it from a play off, but it was a mid -week penalty that he called himself who won most of the titles.

As he played PAR-3 8 Friday, Henley withdrew his remaining access from the green. When he made his back on his second shot, the ball always moved so little from his original lie. It didn’t move too far – “a faint on the right” said Henley a day later – so little that he actually finished shaking, playing in green and making stack for what looked like a par. But he knew that something was not feeling good about it, so he called to a rules official. Determination here – Rule 9.2a – Discount if Henley was “practically safe” that it was the reason the ball moved. Its complication further was the fact that, according to Doug Ferguson of Associated PressThe ruling official thought Henley should be able to play without a penalty. Only Henley looked at it differently. He was quite certain that he was the reason the ball moved, so he eliminated the gray area of ​​a ruling, called it a penalty with a blow to himself and continued.

Although the tournament did not go forward without it. Henley shot 61 on Saturday to go back to the quarrel. He flirted with supremacy throughout Sunday’s round, and ultimately found himself right in his thickness below the stretch. When that 72nd bird chip entered, he had guaranteed himself at least a second part, and a bunch of 1,76 million dollars, to be accurate with him.

Just not a place in a play off.

It would be easy for the home golf fan to live in this case. Or feel valuable in those feelings, even reading an article about it here on Golf.com. But there is a hidden lesson in the determination that Henley shared on Saturday when asked about the situation.

Ferguson was the reporter in hand to ask Henley for his explanation, and here’s what got:

“I saw it falling to the right,” Henley said. “And so I know that for a fact. And right – when it happened, it shocked me a little, I still hit the blow, and as the ball is rolling in the green I was thinking, Something just happened there. So I knew, I knew the ball was moving. I just felt it was the right thing to do. The rule says you have to be – I don’t know if it is 19 by 20 times or 95 percent – but definitely sure the ball moved. And I am. And so I just felt like it was the right thing to do. “

Henley admitted he was frustrated by making the ball move, but he was ultimately steadfast in the way he had to answer, constantly calling him “part of the game”. And yet the questions go on because, well, we are people. Golfists of any variety have been in a similar situation where they will do a lie or accidentally cause a moving ball. Other benefits are likely to allow what happened to Henley to fly, without warning and continued without a penalty. Henley simply knows that there are greater consequences that can sit with you as time goes by.

There the eight -stroke punishment he called himself When he used a second type of ball during a round in 2019. There was a new tour he played against Harris English when Henley accidentally went to his ball and didn’t tell anyone, ending the second in a play off. He remembers it well. Henley has called sentences in himself several times, he said on Saturday, mainly because golf is a strange game played in nature and strange things happen. This is what are endlessly reaches the book of rules and its decisions. And while they are not easy to accept, everything turns into that simple explanation that he shared up:

I just felt like it was the right thing to do.

For those at home, asking himself how that confidence accumulates against the end of a shy penalty kick of a play -no, we can call what Henley said in 2019. He is signing autograph after his second round, when he realized that he had accidentally played with a slightly different ball, winning a penalty. One of those infinitely small things that regulate competitive golf, and Henley seems to understand better than most.

He is simply not interested in doing any saint to do so. like He told Michael Bamberger himself That week in 2019: “Strongly unfortunate to play with rules is considered well.”