After Ludvig Aberg attempted to locate the green, spectators at the Scottish Open were astounded by what they saw.
During the Scottish Open, Ludvig Aberg hit the most unlikely shot when he unintentionally sent his opponent’s ball off the green. The eighth hole is a par four, and the young Swede had 148 yards to get there. He wanted to be in the same area as his playing partner, Collin Morikawa, who had located the green well.
The ball struck Morikawa’s as it landed on the green, sending both balls off the green in different directions even though he was supposed to land around 12 feet past the hole.
Unaware of the ramifications of Aberg’s hit, spectators gasped and scratched their heads. The world No. 4 was compelled to continue from the spot where his ball landed. He may have been a birdie, but he had to play from a difficult spot on the right of the green, so he ended up bogey.
But Morikawa managed to put his ball back where it belonged and make a birdie putt. The PGA Tour clarified that there is no penalty and the ball must be put back in its original location if it is known or almost certain that an outside influence (such as another player in stroke play or another ball) lifted or moved a player’s ball while it was at rest in accordance with Rule 9.6.
“I have never before seen it. It’s just one of them, and you probably won’t see it again for a long time,” Aberg said. “I thought I made a solid shot,” Collin was probably going to be somewhere around twelve feet in the air.
From the fairway, neither the ball nor the flagstick are visible. I wasn’t really aware of what the ball hit when we watched it shoot off to the right. There’s nothing I can do once those things happen.
Despite his bad start, Aberg bounced back nicely, finishing the first round two strokes behind leader Justin Thomas with a six-under 64. On the back nine, he shot five under par, including an eagle on the par-five sixteenth hole.
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Aberg continued, “All I try to do is just make good swings, and I did.” “I checked the corresponding box. Naturally, I would have like for the shot on the eighth to remain on the green, but it didn’t this time.
Aberg’s attempt was referred to as “one in 10,000” by a Sky Sports pundit, but even that estimate is cautious given the quantity of golf balls struck at each tournament—the rare occurrence of one hitting another leaving even experts perplexed as to how it could happen.