Rules question arises — after pro wildly hits tee shot between his legs

Matt Baldwin, at the scene of the crime, says he laughed. A day later, while confessing, he laughs again.  

Golf, after all, is a funny game, and tee shots that comedically go between your legs and almost fall in the water behind you are funny shots. 

Wait, what?

Yeah, it’s true, though observers may have done a double-take Thursday, should they have been perusing Baldwin’s results during the British Masters first round. Hole 1 at the Belfry was clean; a par. Hole 2 saw a birdie. Hole 3, another par. Then came hole 4, a 438-yard par-4, with trees and bunkers guarding the fairway on both sides, some water on the right, some water in front of the green, and some water to the left and behind the tee box that isn’t in play — until your tee ball ends up this way, according to the DP World Tour’s online leaderboard:

“Shot 1: 8yds, Rough
445yds to pin”

But how?? Those tagging along with Baldwin may have seen. But the majority of folks were likely in the dark, and the DP World Tour social-media gang sought answers. They found Baldwin on the range, and Friday, they shared a video. 

This was his debrief:

“Yeah, so got to the 4th tee yesterday and simple — driver down the middle of the hole, obviously if you can go down the middle,” Baldwin started.  

“Got to the top of my backswing, felt like a little bit of a crack maybe in the glue or in the head, so tried to stop, momentum carried me on and just clipped the ball that much here [here, he motioned to the bottom of the bottom of the club] and it went through my legs and nearly into the water hazard down behind me. So I think in total it went about 8 yards. So yeah, it was interesting. 

“I instantly laughed just because I assumed that because I had attempted to stop I would’ve been able to re-peg it up and play the hole, but it turns out because I made contact with the ball, it was actually a shot and I had to play my next one from a yard in front of the tee marker, from the rough.”

Let’s unpack this.

We love that not only the 38-year-old Englishman shared, but seemed to enjoy doing so. We’ve all been there, too, in some shape or form.   

But what about his thought on the rule?

The definition of “stroke” helps. It partially reads this way: “The forward movement of the club made to strike the ball. But a stroke has not been made if the player: Decides during the downswing not to strike the ball and avoids doing so by deliberately stopping the clubhead before it reaches the ball or, if unable to stop, by deliberately missing the ball; accidentally strikes the ball when making a practice swing or while preparing to make a stroke.” (Notably, practice swings are covered here, and Zach Johnson can memorably attest to that.)

Of course, Baldwin still had the 445 yards to go. What happened from there?

“The next shot, I had to hit 4-iron hybrid, which went about 180 yards,” he said on the DP World Tour video, “and I hit 6-iron down just short of the ditch, pitched it on to about 10 feet and knocked it in for an easy bogey.”

The story gets better. 

Baldwin played even par from there during the first round, then shot a four-under 68 during Friday’s second round, and he’ll start Saturday respectably tied for 14th and six strokes out of the lead.   

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.