Due to club training aid, two-time major winner is hit with rules violation

The golf club-turned-training aid was seemingly effective for Minjee Lee. 

But it was still a golf club. 

And because it was, it led to a rules violation during Saturday’s third round of the Annika tournament, with the news first reported by Goflweek’s Beth Ann Nichols (whose story you can read in full here.). Lee, a two-time major winner and 10-time winner overall, had included the club in her bag while playing the 1st hole at Pelican Golf Club — and its inclusion gave her one more club than the 14 permitted under the rules, leading to a two-shot penalty for the hole. 

Notably, the infraction was just two shots. According to Nichols’ story, Lee discovered the club before teeing off on the 2nd hole and she avoided an additional penalty — though the maximum shots a player can be penalized under the rule is four. (Additional-club use is spelled out under Rule 4.1b (1) and the penalty is described in Rule 4.1b (4).)

From there, Lee played three-under golf over her final 17 holes, finishing with a one-under 69, and Sunday, she shot a 70. This week, Lee’s among the 60 who will play in the CME Group Tour Championship, the LPGA’s season-ending event. 

Has the infraction happened before? Yes, pros occasionally include extra clubs in their bag, though it’s seemingly rare that one has been used just as a swing aid. 

The last well-circulated example of the extra-club violation came when PGA Tour pro Joel Dahmen played with an extra 4-iron during the first three holes of the Shriners Children’s Open first round. After the round, the popular described the incident this way:

“Bizarr-o. Never happened to me before. I travel with 15, 16 clubs. I think most people out here do depending on conditions and courses.

“You know, been traveling out here for a long time and never happened before. I’d like to blame Geno [his caddie, Geno Bonnalie]. That would be the easy thing to do. It’s not his fault, either. I played Tuesday and Wednesday out here. We didn’t see it in there. It was an extra 4-iron, so I had two 4-irons in the bag.

“Why, I don’t know. I don’t know how it got there. It sucks. It sucks at the spot I’m in as well. Yeah, we got to 4 tee and I grabbed a water and I walked over to my bag and I saw a 4-iron that was in the wrong spot and our stuff is always in the right spot. It wasn’t in the right spot.

“You know, you just want to get so mad and you want to get mad at everything. At the same time, just got to keep playing golf, and I didn’t do a great job of that afterwards.

“It’s tough to refocus. Shot one-over if you take the penalties away, which is not very good out here today. Frustrating, disappointing, but if you play golf long enough weird stuff will happen out here.”

Editor’s note: To read the complete story by Golfweek’s Nichols, please click here.