Matt Kuchar is proving to be not as nice as we all believed he was.
On the 17th hole at Muirfield Village, Kuchar’s drive found the edge of a pitch mark that both he and rules official Robby Ware both agreed was not his own.
Matt Kuchar receives a ruling after his ball lands in a pitch mark. pic.twitter.com/o2TBZ0sl7s
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 30, 2019
The issue began when Kuchar believed he should get relief.
While players are afforded relief from their own pitch mark, they are not afforded the same relief from marks made by other players.
“The rule says it’s got to be your pitch mark,” Ware said after being called to the scene. “If the ball rolled, there’s no way it’s gonna create a second pitch mark.”
Kuchar wouldn’t back down, “What if it rolls and it kind of hops up and hops down?”
Of course, that’s complete BS. There’s no way that Kuchar’s ball “rolled” and then “hopped up and down” hard enough to make that kind of mark.
“Even if it hopped up just an inch or two it’s not gonna create [its own mark],” he said.
So, to prove Kuchar wrong, Ware brought in a cameraman from Golf Channel to show him a replay of the shot. That replay showed the ball taking a few hops before settling into SOMEONE ELSE’S PITCH MARK.
Of course, the guy who wouldn’t pay a caddie who helped lead him to a win wasn’t satisfied with this and stood firm that his second bounce made the mark.
“Oh yeah, you see that Robby?” he said to Ware after viewing the replay. “It popped straight up. That has potential to have broken a different ground than what was initially a pitch mark.”
Ware wasn’t buying this nonsense, as he shouldn’t, and that led Kuchar to ask for a second opinion so Stephen Cox showed up and he also sided with Ware.
“Ultimately it’s already in a hole made by somebody else,” Cox said. “I’m not buying that fact on the second bounce we’re now gonna get you out of a pitch mark made by somebody else.”
When asked by Kuchar to look at the video, Cox offered this up … it’s GOLD!
“I don’t need to look at it, Matt,” Cox continued. “The guys have already seen it on TV. Let’s get back into play.”
This led Kuchar, the so-called “Mr. Nice Guy” to ask for a THIRD-freaking-opinion. He was promptly told NO and that ended the more than 10 minutes of back-and-forth.
Let’s be honest here. There is absolutely no way that that second hop made a big enough indentation in the ground to require relief and Kuchar is literally trying to change the rules during play to favor his own scorecard.
Of course, in his interview after the round, Kuchar didn’t mention that he asked for a third opinion in his interview after the round.
“The only reason I did it is just from seeing the video,” Kuchar said. “I only asked for a second one because I thought there was potential and thought, you never know, you may get someone else who says there is potential for that to happen and we need to look further into that.”
Is this guy the same guy we have all been rooting for?
He sure seems like a complete tool.
