Golf is a very unusual game with many rules and regulations.  Most of us amateur golfers know  some of the rules but fail to learn all of the tricky and complicated rules that the USGA book maps out for us.  At all the professional tournaments there is a team of officials that are called upon when a player is in a sticky situation.  Several weeks ago I wrote about Sergio Garcia  hitting a stray ball that struck a woman’s hand and knocked out the diamond in her engagement ring. That may have been the most expensive swing in his career.  You can read that blog posted on golfclubsox.com.  Well recently,  Rory  McIlroy managed to hit a ball off target and where do you imagine his ball fell?  This would be pretty hard to believe, so without further guessing I will tell you that Rory’s ball managed to fall right into the right pocket of a spectator after richoceting off a tree at the TOUR Championship.  That seems rather impossible to me, but someone caught it on video and we have it for all to see.  Unfortunately, the spectator was not able to keep the ball as a souvenir.  Rule 19-1a which deals with a ball in motion that is accidentally deflected or stopped by an outside agency states the player gets a drop as McIlroy did and he went on to par the hole.

PGA TOUR