It’s not often that fan-favourite Jordan Spieth hears boos ring out around him, but Ryder Cups are a different breed. When you’re representing the US on European soil, even somewhat boring rules exchanges like this one take on some added tension.
And that’s what we saw on Saturday morning at the Ryder Cup.
The exchange happened on the 17th hole during the Saturday foursomes session, which at the time was a pivotal one in the match between Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, and Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. The American duo had crawled their way back from 3 down on the 12th hole to 1 down on the 17th tee for a chance to help the US team split the session.
On the hole itself, Thomas missed the subsequent tee shot slightly right, which bounced once and hopped into some thick, gnarly rough.
The ball wasn’t located immediately, and it was in the ensuing search that the rules question arose.
The searching group located the ball but then, as the people began to clear, Spieth said he noticed that his ball had been stepped on accidentally. Spieth made clear he wasn’t trying to improve his lie—”I don’t think the lie is any different, but I could see it,” he said—but under Rule 7.4, he was entitled to place his ball back to where he thinks it was initially.
That’s when the crowd started briefly booing. Nevertheless, Rory McIlroy and the rules official both agreed. Spieth lifted his ball, identified it, then replaced it back. Spieth then asked Rory McIlroy if the new lie was acceptable, and McIlroy said it was.
It was a minor rules technicality with no clear advantage, as evidenced by what happened next: From the atrocious lie, Spieth hacked it out to short of the green, then Thomas failed to chip in. The pair lost the hole, and the match.
