Tour Puts Kibosh On DeChambeau’s Plan

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | On a quiet Tuesday afternoon when a snappy breeze was blowing winter’s last gasp across northeastern Florida, the PGA Tour dropped an e-mail about a rules tweak for the Players Championship this week.

The e-mail read: “In the interest of safety for spectators, volunteers and other personnel, The Players Championship Rules Committee has installed an internal out of bounds left of the lake for play of hole 18. Similar instances of internal out of bounds for safety purposes have occurred at The Open Championship (hole 9) in 2017, the 2021 Sony Open in Hawaii (hole 13 and hole 18), and most recently, the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard (hole 6).”

It might as well be named the Bryson DeChambeau rule.

Golf’s Beast of Bash had suggested – when prodded last Sunday evening after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational – that he would consider an alternative route on the TPC Stadium Course’s water-filled par-4 finishing hole, choosing to play across the water rather than around it, ai...