Remember when Russell Henley went from hero to zero – from contention to a weekend off – in the time it took to view a small dash on a ball?
It was the 2019 Mayakoba Golf Classic and the multi-time PGA Tour winner had just set the seal on a second-round 69 to follow an opening 66.
While signing for fans in the aftermath, Henley realised one of his balls was different to the Titleist Pro V1x he normally used.
“It was a small dash, a different way it was marked that would have been easy to overlook,” said Tour rules official Brad Fabel, after Henley had told them about the problem.
He’d fallen foul of golf’s ‘one-ball rule’, a Model Local Rule and which is frequently used in the professional game and in elite amateur competitions.
Golf one ball rule: How does it work?
It prevents players from using balls with different characteristics during a round and allows committees to require that a player uses only a single type of ball that’s on a conforming list.
