Matthew Baldwin throughout final yr’s ISPS Handa World Invitational.
Getty Photographs
Matt Baldwin, on the scene of the crime, says he laughed. A day later, whereas confessing, he laughs once more.
Golf, in any case, is a humorous sport, and tee pictures that comedically go between your legs and virtually fall within the water behind you’re humorous pictures.
Wait, what?
Yeah, it’s true, although observers might have performed a double-take Thursday, ought to they’ve been perusing Baldwin’s outcomes throughout the British Masters first spherical. Gap 1 on the Belfry was clear; a par. Gap 2 noticed a birdie. Gap 3, one other par. Then got here gap 4, a 438-yard par-4, with bushes and bunkers guarding the golf green on either side, some water on the precise, some water in entrance of the inexperienced, and a few water to the left and behind the tee field that isn’t in play — till your tee ball finally ends up this fashion, in accordance with the DP World Tour’s on-line leaderboard:
“Shot 1: 8yds, Tough
445yds to pin”
However how?? These tagging together with Baldwin might have seen. However the majority of parents had been seemingly at midnight, and the DP World Tour social-media gang sought solutions. They discovered Baldwin on the vary, and Friday, they shared a video.
This was his debrief:
“Yeah, so acquired to the 4th tee yesterday and easy — driver down the center of the opening, clearly in the event you can go down the center,” Baldwin began.
“Received to the highest of my backswing, felt like a little bit little bit of a crack perhaps within the glue or within the head, so tried to cease, momentum carried me on and simply clipped the ball that a lot right here [here, he motioned to the bottom of the bottom of the club] and it went by means of my legs and almost into the water hazard down behind me. So I believe in complete it went about 8 yards. So yeah, it was attention-grabbing.
“I immediately laughed simply because I assumed that as a result of I had tried to cease I might’ve been capable of re-peg it up and play the opening, but it surely seems as a result of I made contact with the ball, it was really a shot and I needed to play my subsequent one from a yard in entrance of the tee marker, from the tough.”
Let’s unpack this.
We love that not solely the 38-year-old Englishman shared, however appeared to get pleasure from doing so. We’ve all been there, too, in some form or kind.
However what about his thought on the rule?
The definition of “stroke” helps. It partially reads this fashion: “The ahead motion of the membership made to strike the ball. However a stroke has not been made if the participant: Decides throughout the downswing to not strike the ball and avoids doing so by intentionally stopping the clubhead earlier than it reaches the ball or, if unable to cease, by intentionally lacking the ball; by accident strikes the ball when making a follow swing or whereas making ready to make a stroke.” (Notably, follow swings are lined right here, and Zach Johnson can memorably attest to that.)
After all, Baldwin nonetheless had the 445 yards to go. What occurred from there?
“The subsequent shot, I needed to hit 4-iron hybrid, which went about 180 yards,” he stated on the DP World Tour video, “and I hit 6-iron down simply wanting the ditch, pitched it on to about 10 toes and knocked it in for a straightforward bogey.”
The story will get higher.
Baldwin performed even par from there throughout the first spherical, then shot a four-under 68 throughout Friday’s second spherical, and he’ll begin Saturday respectably tied for 14th and 6 strokes out of the lead.
