Adam Scott Golfer Takes Two-Shot Penalty After Wrong Ball at Doral

Adam Scott golfer took a two-shot penalty in Thursday’s opening round at Doral after playing the wrong ball on the par-5 eighth hole. The mistake turned a routine recovery into a double-bogey 7 and left him 12 shots behind early leader Cameron Young after 18 holes.

Scott at Doral

Scott returned to the Blue Monster as an honorary defending champion after winning the WGC-Cadillac Championship there 10 years earlier. The Miami resort had not hosted a PGA Tour event since 2016 before coming back on the schedule this year, and this week’s round quickly became about one costly rules error instead of that history.

He opened with two birdies and two bogeys through seven holes, then pulled his tee shot into the rough at the par-5 eighth. From there, he played his second shot and only realized before the third that he had hit the wrong ball.

Rule 6.3 at Doral

Under Rule 6.3, playing a wrong ball brings a two-shot penalty, and Scott had to go back to the spot where he believed his drive had landed. He found his original ball, played what counted as his fourth shot back into the fairway, then hit the green from 147 yards with his fifth and two-putted from 15 feet for a double-bogey 7.

The damage did not stop there. He made eight straight pars after the blunder, then bogeyed the last two holes to post a four-over 76 in the opening round.

Scott and Cameron Young

Scott was blunt afterward. “Yeah, I mean, it’s such a silly thing to do,” he said. “I think it’s the first time I’ve ever done it in my career.”

He added, “That’s probably one of those things everyone ends up doing once.” Then came the number that framed the round most sharply: “To take two lumps there was, is tough, especially as you sit here now in the weekend and thinking if you’re two better you would be doing so well in the tournament.”