{"id":643438,"date":"2026-05-14T21:47:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643438\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:47:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:47:21","slug":"jon-rahm-apologizes-for-inexcusable-incident-at-pga-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643438\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Rahm apologizes for ‘inexcusable’ incident at PGA Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spaniard had a slow start to the season\u2019s second major at Aronimink in his stellar grouping<\/a> with Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, but burst into life with a hole-out eagle on the second, his 11th hole.<\/p>\n

That was the highlight of Rahm\u2019s chaotic opening-round 69, which also included a big break<\/a> when he got relief from a sprinkler head impeding him in the rough, which allowed him to drop his ball in the fairway.<\/p>\n

The lowlight, though, came down his closing stretch on the 7th. <\/p>\n

After a poor shot out of the rough on the par-4, an agitated Rahm slammed his club into the turf in frustration. Little did he know that the swing would pull out a sizable lump of grass and strike a volunteer by the side of the face. He felt awful and immediately apologized to the volunteer, but also wants to go one step further by offering them a gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for reminding of that,\u201d Rahm smiled when asked about the incident by TG. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got a flier on my second shot that went long. It\u2019s not a good spot. Just out of frustration, I tried to make an air swing just over the grass, and I wasn\u2019t looking, took a divot, and unfortunately I hit a volunteer.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately it hit him in the shoulder and then the face. I couldn\u2019t feel any worse. That\u2019s why I was there apologizing. I need to somehow track him down to give him a present because that\u2019s inexcusable and for something that could be completely avoidable. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it was my intention or not, it was just not good.\u201d<\/p>\n

A newly-introduced Code of Conduct<\/a> is displayed in the locker room here by the PGA of America this week. The organization\u2019s chief championships officer Kerry Haigh explained that the the new rules came about after \u201ca number of meetings\u201d with the other bodies that control the majors \u2013 Augusta National, The R&A, and the USGA, as well as the PGA and DP World Tours.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a player does something egregious then, unfortunately, we would give a warning to that player,\u201d Haigh said. \u201cAnd if they were to do it again, there would be a two-shot penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PGA Championship has not yet commented on whether Rahm received a warning for the incident. <\/p>\n

The two-time major champion, who is finely placed at one-under, spoke about the preconceptions this week that players would go low around Aronimink. In Thursday\u2019s opening wave, no player bettered a three-under 67, with Bryson DeChambeau and McIlroy among the big names well off the pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you seen the golf course?\u201d Rahm joked, before explaining where this venue bares its teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can understand because if you just go by some of the numbers, some of the fairways are wide, the greens aren\u2019t crazy firm. But a lot of those fairways are sloped in a way that they play very narrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike 15 today, I thought I was going to be in the fairway undoubtedly, and I was off the fairway. Same on 10, same on 4. It can easily roll off. Then the rough doesn\u2019t look as long as many other majors, but it\u2019s such a thick blade of grass that, even when the lie looks okay, it catches you so bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I can see how in appearance it might be easier, but it\u2019s not. You need to play really good golf to shoot lower than 3-under. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn top of that, those pin locations today are good ones. I mean, they\u2019re tucked. They\u2019re not easy. There was somebody earlier in the week where there was some chatter where people thought 15 to 20-under was going to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that got to somebody in the PGA, and they did something about it! If the golf course stays like this and it keeps firming up, it\u2019s not going to be anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spaniard had a slow start to the season\u2019s second major at Aronimink in his stellar grouping with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-643438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}