Charl Schwartzel had a hole turn strange in a hurry over the weekend at LIV Golf New York. His tee shot on the 134-yard, par-3 seventh landed on the green, spun back and rolled into the water, where a fish jumped up and ate the ball.
The moment mattered because it changed the score on the spot. Schwartzel took relief and a one-stroke penalty before making bogey, an outcome that fit the rules even if the scene did not. Golf generally gives a player replacement without penalty when an outside influence, including an animal, moves a ball at rest. But once the ball had entered the penalty area, the drop carried the penalty with it.
That is what made the play so unusual. Courses do not lack wildlife interruptions, but they usually come in the form of alligators, snakes, birds, bears or moose, not a fish that appears to have swallowed a golfer’s shot in mid-round. The ball also could not be identified with complete certainty from the footage beyond looking like a largemouth bass, though that was the clear impression as it leapt from the pond.
Schwartzel, the 2011 Masters champion and winner of the first-ever LIV Golf event in 2022, was playing LIV Golf New York at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster as the circuit returned to the New York area Aug. 6-9. The bizarre interruption did not linger beyond the hole, but it did leave its mark: a bogey on a par 3 because a fish got to the ball before the golfer could.
For Schwartzel, the only question left is not whether the shot was memorable. It was. The real issue is how often golf can still surprise even the players who have seen nearly everything.
