{"id":436091,"date":"2025-07-29T20:13:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=436091"},"modified":"2025-07-29T20:13:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:13:30","slug":"3m-open-preferred-lies-decision-sparks-fan-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/3m-open-preferred-lies-decision-sparks-fan-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"3M Open Preferred Lies Decision Sparks Fan Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2025 3M Open is officially done with Kurt Kitayama taking home the prize.\u00a0 Despite being overshadowed by The Open over in Northern Ireland<\/a>, the tournament had quite a bit to offer.\u00a0 Max Homa had pressure to play the best he could<\/a> before he could go home to his wife and soon-to-arrive child.\u00a0 Then there were the players honoring Kayla Hale<\/a>s after she tragically passed away by wearing black ribbons with her initials on them.\u00a0 Another issue that arose as the tournament began was the preferred lies ruling in effect.\u00a0 Fans were not impressed by it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Is Preferred Lies?<\/span><\/h2>\n

For a quick reminder, preferred lies is a special rule used based on course conditions.\u00a0 It rained right before the tournament, and as a result, players were allowed to place a marker, clean their ball, and then resume play.\u00a0 Players are allowed to place the ball within one club length of where it was, but never closer to the hole.\u00a0 It is meant to avoid issues like mud balls.\u00a0 An incident that occurred during the PGA Championship<\/a> in May.\u00a0 The decision not to use preferred lies then was very controversial among the players, as even the best were struggling to keep their balls on the fairway.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fan Response To Decision<\/span><\/h2>\n

On the official PGA Tour Communications Twitter account,<\/a> the decision to allow preferred lies was made.\u00a0 Fans did not take it well as they felt it wasn\u2019t in the spirit of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

One responded, \u201cSoftest tour in the world. I\u2019m watching LIV this week anyway.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another said, \u201cPathetic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One commenter simply said, \u201cBooo.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the comments gets to the core of what the controversy is around when they replied to the preferred lies rules with, \u201cLift, clean, and cheat.\u201d\u00a0 One of the most well-known rules is to play it as it lies.\u00a0 It is so well known that it became the setup of a joke and plot point in the original Happy Gilmore.\u00a0 For some, it is seen as a way to move the ball into a more favorable position.\u00a0 Generally, when most people play, they play it as it lies.\u00a0 However, when the course conditions are bad, the players will have problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

Preferred Lies Will Be Used Again<\/span><\/h2>\n

The 3M Open only used preferred lies for its first round.\u00a0 For the rest of the tournament, the weather was clear, giving the field enough time to dry before the second round.\u00a0 Although preferred lies is controversial among the fans, that is far from the case with the players.\u00a0 As stated before, the PGA Championship was not the best time for the top players during the first round.\u00a0 Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy often found their balls veering off course while caked in mud.\u00a0 It was an odd decision not to have preferred lies then.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So long as the players remember what it is like to play with mud balls, they will call for preferred lies.\u00a0 The governing bodies aren\u2019t interested in removing the rule entirely and will ignore fans.\u00a0 Favoring the performance of the players instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Matt Krohn-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2025 3M Open is officially done with Kurt Kitayama taking home the prize.\u00a0 Despite being overshadowed by The Open over in Northern Ireland, the tournament had quite a bit to offer.\u00a0 Max Homa had pressure to play the best he could before he could go home to his wife and soon-to-arrive child.\u00a0 Then there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":436092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[8156],"class_list":["post-436091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-3m-open"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436093,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436091\/revisions\/436093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}