Why Emiliano Grillo could have hit a moving ball at Colonial

It’s rare when a player is allowed to hit a moving ball, turning golf into some sort of horseless polo, but rare doesn’t quite cover it. Almost unprecedented is more like it.

It was a bizarre situation that presented itself to eventual winner Emiliano Grillo at the Charles Schwab Challenge – he could have legally hit a moving ball as it slowly floated back to him in shallow water. Mark Dusbabek, PGA TOUR Senior Director TV Rules & Video Analyst, said it was the first time he’d seen such a thing.

“I’ve never had that ruling,” Dusbabek said Tuesday. He laughed. “I’m just happy I remembered it.”

Keep in mind, he’s been doing this for 25 years - the last 18 with the PGA TOUR.

To recap: Grillo, seeking his first PGA TOUR win in seven-plus years, led by two strokes when he got to the 18th hole Sunday. Then it got complicated, because his tee shot at the last sailed right of the fairway and the ball wound up in a concrete drainage ditch with shallow, slow-moving water, in a penalty area.

Fans cheered and laughed as viewers at home followed the ball, which bobbled and meandered with the current back toward the tee. Jim Nantz brought in Dusbabek to make sense of it all. Grillo could accept a penalty stroke and take a drop where his tee shot crossed the penalty area, Dusbabek said, or he could attempt a rare golf feat:

“This is one opportunity where you can play moving ball, as well,” the veteran Rules official said.

Wait. What? It was an odd thing to hear, and several fans did a double take.

“It’s the only time you can hit a moving ball,” Dusbabek clarified two days later.

As its written, Rule 10.1 prohibits a player from making a stroke at a moving ball. However, Grillo’s situation fell under Exception 3 – Ball Moving in Water: When a ball is moving in temporary water or in water in a penalty area:

The player may make a stroke at the moving ball without penalty, or

The player may take relief under Rule 16.1 or 17 and may lift the moving ball.

In either case, the player must not unreasonably delay play (see Rule 5.6a) to allow the wind or water current to move the ball to a better place.

Grillo’s ball traveled several yards back toward the tee box, stopped, started again, and stopped again. He opted to take the penalty stroke and drop where it entered the penalty area, on the cart path, and double-bogeyed the hole. In the end, it was a mere side note, as he beat Adam Schenk with a short birdie putt on the second hole of a playoff.

“Well, I've done it before,” Grillo said. “I've hit it there. I knew, as soon as I saw the ball going right, I was like this is going to be a very long hole. I've been through that pain of watching the ball just roll 120 yards back.”

Dusbabek said the ruling was so unusual he and the CBS crew were still talking about it at the airport that night.

“It’s hard to prepare for something like that,” he said.