Adrian Meronk slapped with slow-play penalty in LIV Golf event that costs him more than $360,000

By

[PHOTO: Francois Nel]

LIV Golf has no interest in slow play. That’s apparent by a final-round ruling in the league’s Jeddah event where it hit Adrian Meronk with a one-shot penalty for taking more than two minutes to play a shot.

Instead of tying Jon Rahm for fifth place, Meronk dropped into a six-way tie for sixth place, a difference of $US240,000 ($A368,000) in earnings.

Joaquin Niemann dominates in Jeddah, further justifying Masters invite; Anthony Kim ends return 33 shots behind

Meronk was grouped with Rahm and Kevin Na during the final round at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club. The group, according to a LIV Golf release, was given a warning after their eighth hole of the day. They were out of position and behind the allotted time par set by the league. Four holes later the group was even further behind and was timed by a rules official.

The release states “a player has 40 seconds to play each stroke, with an additional 10 seconds if they are the first to play any stroke in the group”.

Meronk was said to have exceeded two minutes to play his second shot on the 18th hole, going well beyond the time set by the policy.

“Meronk was immediately notified by an official and assessed a one-stroke penalty. With the one stroke penalty, Meronk’s score of 4 on the par-5 18th hole resulted in a score of 5.”

Richard Bland was handed LIV Golf’s first slow-play penalty last season in Spain. Meronk’s penalty was only the second in this, the third year, of the league’s history.