Xander Schauffele holds a three-shot lead over the likes of Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa after round one of the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship, but his opening venture onto the Quail Hollow course was not without incident.
Schauffele made six birdies, an eagle, and a solitary bogey in his superb Thursday 64, but it could have been a far more tightly-bunched leaderboard if a rules incident on his penultimate hole had played out differently.
Standing on the par-4 8th at Quail Hollow - Schauffele's penultimate hole - the American sprayed his drive out to the right and watched it fly towards some trees and bushes near a penalty area.
After almost three minutes of his entire group searching, Wyndham Clark located what he thought could be Schauffele's ball near a fence but - crucially - just past the penalty area.
As the golf ball was right next to the property fence line, Schauffele consulted a PGA Tour rules official who agreed he was eligible for a free drop. The relief for Schauffele occurred because a ShotLink tower (Temporary Immovable Object) was between player and green just past a tiny one-foot window underneath the foliage.
🚨🫳👀 #WATCH — The full video of the Xander Schauffele #DropGate situation 😲 pic.twitter.com/nsUvXS2fK6May 9, 2024
Despite the unlikelihood of the 30-year-old Californian being able to actually shift his golf ball through the gap, Schauffele didn't have to worry about it - instead, he dropped his ball onto some pine straw two club lengths closer to the fairway. The new ball position allowed Schauffele a much clearer look at the green and ultimately helped him make a par which seemed extremely unlikely mere minutes before.
The reaction from fans and journalists online was not favourable to the player, but Schauffele explained in his post-round press conference that while he "got really lucky" a few times, his ruling was perfectly legitimate.
Schauffele said: "Got really lucky multiple times, on 1 with Wyndham finding it, 2, being able to move the rocks, and 3, the ShotLink tower being in like my only shot line possible. To walk out there with sort of a no breeze 4 with what I thought was almost out was a really good break."
Going on to explain the exact ruling from his point of view, the seven-time PGA Tour winner said: "Yeah, I hit it in the trees. My ball was probably like a foot, two feet from the fence. If I -- ball was here, fence was kind of here, hitting back this direction.
"If I went towards the green, the fence kind of worked this way so I had what I could hit, a 4-iron or something low and just kind of run it through. If it gets stuck, I'll just kind of hit my next one out. But I brought the rules official in there with me because I was like, you've got to be OK with this because this is literally the only shot I can hit.
"So Austin [Kaiser - caddie] and I moved two massive rocks that weren't embedded and then I got relief out of the junk and then hit a pretty good shot on the green from there. What was a very stressful moment turned into a pretty stressless par."
One journalist followed up with: "But you were not in the penalty area, or were you?" to which Schauffele replied: "No, I was beyond it actually."
Schauffele's good fortune was only allowed to happen because one of his playing partners, Clark, decided to move a little further on past where the ball was thought to have landed in order to search for it.
And even then, the Wells Fargo first-round leader admitted he was almost forced to play his provisional ball as the time window to find golf ball no.1 was close to expiring.
Asked how close to the three minutes they were, Schauffele said: "Probably pretty close. The volunteer was by the ShotLink tower and he said he heard it land in the hazard, so everyone's kind of looking in the hazard.
"Then Wyndham and Austin kind of went further up and then they found the ball. Wyndham's like, I think that's your ball, so kind of walked up, identified it and went from there."
Schauffele will begin his second round alongside Clark and Shane Lowry from the first tee at 12.17pm ET (5.17pm BST) on Friday.
