Jordan Spieth and Henrik Stenson Penalized for Bizarre Rules Mishap in the Bahamas – Sports Illustrated

The Hero World Challenge proved to be especially challenging for Jordan Spieth.

On Thursday, Spieth was penalized two shots for failing to move his ball back to its original spot, after causing the ball to move on the 18th green at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas. Spieth, who also had to roll up his pants to hit a shot on No. 18, went on to shoot a 1-over 71 in the first round.

A former No. 1 player in the rankings and a three-time major championship winner, Spieth was penalized again during the final round on Sunday. Along with playing partner Henrik Stenson, he played the wrong tee box at the par-5 ninth hole. Both players were assessed two-shot penalties for the mistake. Here's how it happened:

Thus, the bogey Spieth appeared to score on the hole became a triple bogey, which brought his front nine tab to 3-over par. Spieth, who with his wife Annie celebrated the birth of a first child on Nov. 14, wound up shooting a 4-over 76. He had four rounds in the 70s and finished last in the field of 20, 6-over for the championship.

According to the AP, "the PGA Tour moved the tee box forward on the par-5 ninth hole to allow more players a chance to reach the green in two. They used the original ninth tee for the par-3 17th so the hole would play a little shorter and over the water.

Both tee boxes had a large white sign indicating the hole. Spieth and Stenson didnt notice.

We kept our heads down off the finishing out on hole No. 8 and walked to the 9 tee box that we did on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and put the ball down and hit some beautiful tee shots, Stenson said. Then when we went down to the balls, the rules official said, Did you hit off the right tee box?

Spieth said there was a notice when they checked in to start the round about new yardages for the two holes. He wishes there had been a little bit more clarity that tee boxes were changing.

I actually didnt think we were going to get penalized because its a charity event, but then I realized theres world ranking involved and all that, Spieth said. I think the frustrating part for us now is that every other group ... theyre making sure to tell them, but for us they didnt. It obviously didnt matter for us, which is fortunate I think for those guys.

The good news is that last place in this event still plays $100,000.

The AP contributed to this report.

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Jordan Spieth and Henrik Stenson Penalized for Bizarre Rules Mishap in the Bahamas - Sports Illustrated