A ball stuck in a tree at the Australian PGA Championship has caused major delays, with Jhonattan Vegas the unlucky player in the midst of the chaos in Brisbane.
Vegas lodged his ball inside a massive white fig tree on the 14th hole, interrupting his momentum after he'd hit four consecutive pars.
Commentator Paul Gow described the scenes from the ground, with multiple people, including Vegas himself, climbing the tree and feeling around for the ball.
READ MORE: Tigers set to offer Luai mammoth $4.5m deal
READ MORE: Rabbitohs 'Dream Team' great dies after long illness
READ MORE: Tszyu takes title after surviving early 'roadblock'
"It's up there, there's a bunch of people down here. I was on one side of the tree, they're on the other side of the tree. It didn't get through there," he said on Nine's coverage of the PGA Championship.
"I think it's going to be a lost ball, unless he can identify that ball and can climb up the tree and have a look for it, because it is nowhere around.
It looked like time to give up until rules official Andy Rogers came to the rescue.
Watch the 2023 Australian PGA Championship, live and free on Nine and 9Now
Rogers was hoisted up the tree, using a phone as a torch to push the ball through to Vegas, eagerly waiting on the other side for his ball to drop into his hands.
Vegas' ball is luckily branded with his name clearly, so there was no mistaking it as his, despite Gow speculating that there could be "plenty of golf balls up in it" due to a gap in the tree's centre.
"It's my ball. Legit," Vegas said.
But then came the next problem of where to actually drop the ball.
"Andy (Rogers) is just identifying where that ball was. I think he's got to come back another two or three feet actually to be certainly, and then he can drop it out," Gow said.
Once decided, the ball ended up on a rocky patch of the tree's roots, which worried Gow.
"This is fraught with danger," he said.
"It's a tough one for Jhonattan his first game back. he's just got into the grind of things, he's had four pars in a row and something like this derails him.
"It's an interesting hole this 14th, every other hole is wide area, this is like a runway to get down this fairway, it's only some 18 metres wide and then you've got the big trees there beside. It's a difficult driving hole for everybody here.
Vegas managed to hit the shot with ease.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.