England’s Tyrrell Hatton insists he is not trying to be funny with his on-course remonstrations – in fact it is completely the opposite.
The 31-year-old is well known for his often expletive-laden outbursts which accompany poor shots but after taking a quadruple-bogey at the last on Friday he was even more demonstrative.
After tapping in for a nine, having hit two drives out of bounds, which ended his hopes of contending for the final major of the season Hatton turned round and used his putter to mimic shooting three times at the tee.
After a third-round 68 lifted him back to one under for the tournament, still too far back with one round to go, Hatton was asked about his mannerisms.
“I’ve done that one before on 18. Just a reaction to not being happy – but I definitely didn’t do a middle finger (gesture) ,” he said after his third round.
“I’m not doing it to be funny. I’m just being myself, what comes into my head at that time. That’s it.
“I just had two bad swings back-to-back and that kind of effectively takes us out of the tournament.”
