NASSAU, Bahamas – Collin Morikawa was assessed a two-stroke penalty for violating Model Local Rule G-11, which restricts the use of green-reading materials, on Sunday at the Hero World Challenge.
The infraction, which occurred on the fourth hole during the third round and eventually resulted in a triple bogey-7, stemmed from Morikawa’s caddie, J.J. Jakovac, using a level on the practice putting green before the third round to formulate what officials called “a putting system.”
“Unfortunately, the caddie used a device, a level, on the practice putting green. That’s not a breach of the rule in itself but what he did was he developed that chart or formula as a handwritten note in his yardage book. That’s where the breach occurred,” said the Tour’s chief referee Stephen Cox. “Because he used it while assessing the putt [at No. 4] during his third round he was assessed a two-shot penalty.”
Cox said the fourth hole was the only time Morikawa and Jakovac used the formula during the round.
Cox was informed of the possible breach late Saturday evening by Matt Fitzpatrick, who was paired with Morikawa in the third round.
“[Morikawa] was very frustrated, it’s a very complicated rule. Obviously, when we implemented it back in 2022 there was a huge amount of [green-reading] information,” said Cox, who informed Morikawa of the penalty about 15 minutes before his final-round tee time at Albany.
Although it’s a relatively new rule, Cox said this is not the first time a Tour player has been assessed a penalty for using illegal green-reading materials.
“These hand-written notes needed to be obtained through traditional methods to protect the fundamental skill of reading greens,” Cox said. “In this situation, the caddie used the level to determine degrees of slope on the [practice] putting green and formulated a putting chart and transferred that into the [yardage] book. Had he used traditional methods and estimated with his feet or other means the percentages of slope that formula would be fine.”
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