[PHOTO: Richard Heathcote]
At the end of a long, tough opening day for Marcel Siem in the DP World Tour’s PGA BMW Championship, just about the only good decision the German veteran seemed to make was to take to social media in the evening to explain a strange choice he made that got him disqualified.
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Siem is 45 years old and has six wins on the European tour, so he should know the rules well enough to have avoided his plight. But a week after he had to withdraw from the Irish Open with a back injury, Siem’s explanation about what happened in the first round at Wentworth sounds as if he kind of just thought, Screw it. What he actually did say in his post on Instagram was, “kind of tired of the whole day.”
Probably the main reason he posted something was because Siem wanted to make the assertion that, “I didn’t cheat.” Of course, the judgment of that would depend on anyone’s interpretation, since he did break the rules. What we do know is that he seemingly ignored the rules in plain sight.
Siem was already having a rough day when he arrived at par-5 18th hole, sputtering at five-over. He pushed his drive far to the right and said he believed it was so deep in the hazard that he needed to hit a provisional ball off the tee.
As Siem arrived at the provisional ball to then hit his fourth shot, spectators alerted him that they’d found his original ball – short of the water, but still in an area marked as a hazard. “The ball was underneath the branch, couldn’t chip it out,” Siem recalled. “I said, ‘OK, this is unplayable.’”
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At that point, the rules require the golfer to accept a penalty and return to the tee. Siem didn’t do that. “Picked the ball up, and then just stupidly hit my fourth shot,” he said. “Just kept going, made birdie with my second ball, so to say, made a bogey.”
As he sat in scoring area going over his card, Siem got a clearer picture of what he’d done.
“I was just about to sign my card, and I just realised something is off here. ‘Guys, I don’t think I made a 6, let’s call a referee,’” Siem said. “I said, ‘Dude, I think I made a mistake here, right? I’m supposed to go back to the 18th tee box and play my third shot, right?’ Because it’s water hazard, and if I declared as unplayable, I have to go back, and I cannot hit my provisional ball,” Siem recalled.
“So that was the case, so I’m disqualified because of that. Strange two weeks, very upsetting. It is what it is, guys. I just wanted to tell you what happened.”
Siem ended the post on a philosophical note.
“Sometimes you can’t explain things in life,” he said. “All good. Have a lovely evening.”
