2021 Masters: Abraham Ancer assessed two-stroke penalty

After finishing Thursday’s opening round at 1-over par, Abraham Ancer had to be satisfied with his performance at The Masters.

Despite four bogeys, Ancer was still very well in position to potentially make a run over the remainder of the weekend.

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However, more than five hours after completing his round at the Augusta National, Ancer was informed that he was assessed a two stroke penalty on hole No. 15 after unintentionally grazing the sand with his club prior to his backswing.

As a result, Ancer’s score on the par-5 15th hole was changed to a triple bogey eight rather than his original bogey.

As a result of the change, Ancer officially finished with a 3-over par 75, which puts him in a tie for 52nd.

The score change will only make Ancer’s quest to take home a green jacket much more difficult. Rather than fighting to make a run for the lead, Ancer may be fighting just to make the cut on Friday.

Many twitter users were understandably outraged due to the seemingly innocent and routine pre-shot events. Ancer’s tweet addressing the situation garnered over 1,000 responses, 1,800 retweets and 5,000 likes.

In their announcement of the penalty, The Masters cited rule 12.2b(1), which states that touching sand in a bunker right behind the ball results in a penalty.

In a statement posted to Twitter, The Masters said, “The touching of the sand was deemed visible to the naked eye. Had this not been the case, the video evidence would have been disregarded and a penalty would not have been applied.”

This turn of events will no doubt reignite the conversation within the golf world regarding the use of video replay after a player has already completed their round. This is just one of a handful of occurrences where a golfer was assessed a penalty for grazing the sand in a bunker.