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Jon Rahm rules controversy at Irish Open

By Yash Padhye

SAN DIEGO, CA - JANUARY 29: Jon Rahm of Spain celebrates his eagle putt on the 18th hole during the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South on January 29, 2017 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)
SAN DIEGO, CA - JANUARY 29: Jon Rahm of Spain celebrates his eagle putt on the 18th hole during the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South on January 29, 2017 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images) /
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Jon Rahm had to navigate a ball marking controversy before he could hoist the Irish Open trophy Sunday afternoon.

Jon Rahm won handily at the European Tour‘s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open hosted by the Rory Foundation on Sunday. He ended up shooting a 24 under par to win by six strokes .According to BBC Sport, Bernhard Langer has the Irish Open record of 27 under par and Rahm was just three strokes short of tying it.

This was no ordinary round for Rahm who had a rules controversy during his final round at Portstewart. The controversy came up on the sixth green and was specifically about how Rahm marked his golf ball on the green.

His controversial move on the sixth green caused a lot of uproar on social media and in the golf world. Here’s video of what happened on that sixth green:

The European Tour did not assess a penalty on Rahm for the blunder and he continued to play on shooting a final round 65 which included an eagle from 150 yards away.

Fox Sports golf analyst Steve Flesch was disappointed that the European Tour decided against penalizing Rahm and compared it to Lexi Thompson’s mistake earlier this year. Thompson was assessed a four-stroke penalty. The fiasco helped create the Lexi Thompson rule.

According to SBNation.com the new rule says that,

"So long as the player does what can reasonably be expected under the circumstances to make an accurate determination, the player’s reasonable judgment will be accepted, even if later shown to be inaccurate by the use of video evidence."

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According to Golf Digest’s Joey Beall, the reason that Rahm was not penalized was because

"Rahm had to move his original mark a putter-head’s length to get out of [Daniel] Im’s line. Because of that action, Rahm is given a bit of latitude in replacing his ball."

Beall also stated that in connection with the Lexi Thompson rule, a rules official determined that Rahm “used reasonable judgement to return the ball to its original spot”

Rahm later told Beall that, “To my eyes, I put the ball back exactly where it was.”

In the end, it turned out to be a sweet deal for Rahm who is back in the winners circle again in this season. Rahm won the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines on the PGA TOUR earlier this year. The Irish Open win marks Rahm’s first win on the European Tour.

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Now Rahm will turn his focus to Royal Birkdale and the Open Championship for which he qualified at the Quicken Loans National tournament a few weeks ago.

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