Daniel Berger – Rule 24-2 and Immovable Obstructions
Daniel Berger collided with Rule 24-2 on his way to a 2nd loss in Texas.
Daniel Berger was the second man to get injured at Austin Country Club. You don’t think of golf as an injury-inducing sport. It’s not like football or hockey or basketball. There’s no contact. It’s a civilized sport, focused more on finesse and strategy than on brute power.
But there are those encounters with the immovable objects and obstacles that developers and designers like to scatter around the course – the walls, the rocks, the trees.
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There they were, Daniel Berger, 2015 PGA Rookie of the Year, and Phil Mickelson, the old man among the Americans, locked in a tight match, all square after 17 holes. To be brutally honest, neither of them was delivering his A game, but that’s not what match play’s about.
Lefty had won his 1st match against Matt Fitzpatrick and Berger had lost his against Patrick Reed. Berger needed this one and he only had that final hole to get it done. His drive went left and snuggled down into the rough beside a lovely rock wall – “an integral part of the golf course” rather than an immovable obstruction. Rule 24-2 was in play. Berger got no relief, despite the fact that the wall was interfering with his swing.
The inevitable happened. Berger’s club clipped the wall. Ouch! Here it is:
Wow I was having lunch in our cafe and had this one and actually saw it happen live! Crazy... Hopefully his wrist... https://t.co/dKZAlH4cdS
— Aurora Golf (@golfaurora) March 24, 2016
Berger conceded the hole (and the match) and has gone off to physio. You can’t play golf with injured hands. As my colleague Matt Cochran has reminded us, we’re 13 days from 1st round tee time at Augusta National. Young Daniel Berger needs to have healthy hands right now.
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Happily, Jason Day seems to have put himself back together. He’s on the course and leading in his match against Throngchai Jaidee. We’ll hope for a similar outcome for Daniel Berger, who may want to consider taking an unplayable lie the next time he gets uncomfortably close to an immovable obstruction.