{"id":436561,"date":"2025-08-25T01:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=436561"},"modified":"2025-08-25T01:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:12:07","slug":"preferred-lies-used-at-tour-championship-to-fans-dismay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/preferred-lies-used-at-tour-championship-to-fans-dismay\/","title":{"rendered":"Preferred Lies Used At Tour Championship To Fans’ Dismay"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the time of writing, the third event of the FedEx Cup playoffs has just wrapped up.\u00a0 With that, the FedEx Cup champion was Tommy Fleetwood.\u00a0 Among all the excitement, there was an incident during the second round that had fans lukewarm on the tournament, as they felt it was unnecessary.\u00a0 That is how preferred lies was implemented for the round.\u00a0 Fans took their grievances to the internet and let their opinion be known.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Were Preferred Lies In Effect?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Ahead of round two of the Tour Championship, the tee times had to be moved up due to incoming storms<\/a>.\u00a0 Seeing the storm, the PGA Tour decided that it would be appropriate to allow preferred lies for the day.\u00a0 The goal is to avoid mud balls, something that can easily throw off any swing.\u00a0 The PGA Championship back in May<\/a>\u00a0is a good example of how bad mud balls can be for pro players.\u00a0 With a ball veering off course due to how the aerodynamics are destroyed by some mud.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fan Reaction<\/span><\/h2>\n

The fans are now impressed with the decision of preferred lies.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Two reasons.\u00a0 The first reason is that preferred lies is usually seen as a form of sanctioned cheating<\/a>.\u00a0 Play it as it lies is a common rule followed by anyone playing for fun or sport.\u00a0 It is a rule that is so well known that the only thing more well known is the scoring system.\u00a0 The second reason why fans are upset is that the East Lake Golf Club is not seen as a very difficult course.\u00a0 Fans already had issues with that alone, as seen with this response to the preferred lies announcement<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know these are 30 of the best players in the world, but when they shoot 61 and other low numbers, it makes a farce of a tournament with so much prize money. A true championship should be played on a demanding championship course.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The rest of the comments echo this sentiment around preferred lies and the course itself.\u00a0 A sentiment that has come up among the comments is that the pros should be able to play in whatever condition, including with mud balls.\u00a0 It brings to mind the image of Hideki Matsuyama practicing in a downpour<\/a> ahead of the PGA Championship.\u00a0 The same major that didn\u2019t use preferred lies and saw mudballs everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Preferred Lies And The PGA Tour<\/span><\/h2>\n

The tour has to walk a thin line when it comes to making its decisions about playing conditions.\u00a0 On the one hand, it has to keep the players happy and make sure they feel like they are all on equal footing.\u00a0 On the other hand, the fans are always watching and listening and are well aware of what the rules say.\u00a0 The fairness of each tournament and the rules can conflict, which is where these exceptions, like preferred lies, come from.\u00a0 Yet at the same time, players have played in the rain before, and some actively train in the rain.\u00a0 It comes as to reason that the top players would know how to adapt to said conditions.\u00a0 However, the Tour has made its decision for the Tour Championship already, a decision that leaves one side unhappy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

At the time of writing, the third event of the FedEx Cup playoffs has just wrapped up.\u00a0 With that, the FedEx Cup champion was Tommy Fleetwood.\u00a0 Among all the excitement, there was an incident during the second round that had fans lukewarm on the tournament, as they felt it was unnecessary.\u00a0 That is how preferred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":436562,"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":[97,278],"class_list":["post-436561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-fedex-cup","tag-tour-championship"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436561","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=436561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436563,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436561\/revisions\/436563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}