Any list of controversies for the year should inevitably begin with LIV Golf. Do a quick Google search for “golf controversies 2022” and the first page delivers only LIV-related headlines. The fledging Saudi-backed series made more news than anything else in the sport this year, and it ruffled a lot of feathers along the way, to put it mildly.
Rest assured, we will have the breakaway circuit covered plenty during our annual Newsmakers countdown, so we’ll go LIV-free here for our recap about the biggest controversies of 2022. Some of these items that follow you’ll vividly recall, and others you may have forgotten. Either way, they all were notable and entertaining in their own right.
During Monday’s final round at the Players Championship in March, the trio of Daniel Berger, Viktor Hovland and Joel Dahmen found themselves in a testy he said/they said rules mix-up on the par-5 16th hole. Berger hit his second shot way right of the green from 233 yards, his ball landing in the water down the right of the hole. Then things got interesting.
Berger adamantly believed that his ball started left of the pin and last crossed land closer to the green. Hovland and Dahmen firmly disagreed, saying the ball started much farther right than Berger thought and that it last crossed land way back down the fairway.
A five-minute debate ensued with Berger saying the following:
“You’re wrong.”
“I’ve never taken a bad drop in my life.”
“Zero percent chance.”
“It’s wrong.”
“It’s a wrong drop.”
Rules official Gary Young left it to Berger to figure out where to drop and, although he believed it was an improper drop, he dropped it back where Dahmen and Hovland suggested.
“I felt strong that my ball crossed here, they felt strongly that it didn’t,” Berger said afterward.
Berger bogeyed the hole, and finished T-13. A par would have meant a T-9 finish and nearly $200,000 in his paycheque.
