ORLANDO — Not every apparent rules question we see on TV turns out to result in a penalty—or even an actual violation.
In the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Friday, Wyndham Clark took a drop after finding his ball embedded in the fairway at the par-4 third hole at Bay Hill Club. Broadcasters on PGA Live questioned, however, whether or not his ball actually wound up coming to rest in an old mark. Rule 16.3 allows players to get relief for a ball “embedded anywhere in the general area,” which essentially means through the green except for a ball in sand, but only if it’s the player’s own mark.
Leader after the first round after a five-under 67, Clark struck a drive that flew 306 yards on the 437-yard dogleg left third hole. His ball obviously was sitting down, but broadcasters questioned between themselves whether Clark’s ball had merely found a depression made by another golfer’s ball. Rich Pierson, the PGA Tour’s director of TV rules and videos, came on the broadcast and noted that if Clark’s ball was in the mark created by another player, he would not be entitled to relief. So when Clark’s ball was then shown with a clean lie, the result of him lifting his ball and dropped it near the original lie (which was not captured on camera), it was left unclear whether or not Clark had violated the embedded ball rule. Clark found the green with his second shot and two-putted from 40 feet for a par.
Ball lands pops up and goes into his own pitch mark. No penalty pic.twitter.com/fHuMnBziMr
— Jack Giammalva (@GiammalvaJack) March 7, 2025
A couple other points to note about the situation: Under Rule 16.3, a ball is determined to be embedded if it breaks the surface of the ground. A simple indentation does not qualify as embedded.
As Clark continued to play his round, the PGA Tour released a statement saying that rules officials on site reviewed video footage and determined that Clark’s drive bounced forward slightly and then settled back into the pitch mark. It was deemed then to be embedded and the relief he took was fine under the Rules.
Statement from the PGA TOUR Rules Committee:
After reviewing ShotLink video of Wyndham Clark’s tee shot on the third hole during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, the PGA TOUR Rules Committee determined that the ball returned to its own…
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) March 7, 2025
Clark played the first 14 holes on Friday at Bay Hill in three under to stretch his leading score to eight-under total. But a double bogey on the 15th hole and a bogey on the 17th hole (offset by a birdie on the 16th) left him signing for a one-under 71 on Friday and at six-under total, two shots back of Shane Lowry.
As Clark was wrapping up his round as Golf Channel’s coverage began, rules official Mark Dusbabek, working that broadcast, came on to offer additional information. He explained the PGA Tour had looked at high-res video that showed Clark’s ball hit, bounced forward and then spun back into its original pitch mark. Meanwhile, Clark wasn’t aware that the drop had become the subject of questions on the broadcast and social media.
“Yeah, didn’t know there was any confusion obviously when I’m playing,” Clark said after his round. “When we hit it, I was asking for it to stop. We never saw it bounce. Then we get up there and it’s in a plugged lie. It was filled with … my ball was covered with mud. So we took relief, didn’t think anything of it.”
Suffice it to say, this isn’t the first time such an incident has occurred on the PGA Tour. In the first round of the 2019 Memorial Tournament, Matt Kuchar tried to argue that his drive on the par-4 17th hole at Muirfield Village Golf Club came to rest in its own pitch mark that his ball created after bounding forward from its original landing point. In Kuchar’s case, rules officials determined that his ball was in a previously created pitch mark and that he had to play the ball as it lies. Kuchar went on to make par.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
