Matt Wallace's honest penalty brings good karma at Innisbrook
· Yahoo Sports
PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Sometimes, karma is a bitch. Other times, it can lead to a string of birdies and a made cut when you do the right thing.
The latter was the case for Englishman Matt Wallace, who called a one-stroke penalty on himself on Friday for moving his ball on the par-5 11th hole at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course.
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Wallace hit his tee shot off line and into pine trees to the right of the fairway of the par 5 and his ball came to rest in the pine straw. Caddie Jamie Lane warned him to be careful and hover his club above the ball but little good it did him.
“This one twig was sticking out, and I think when I was waggling the ball definitely moved. So I had to call the referee over. Didn't know whether it was in the action of my swing or anything, but I definitely touched it, and then the ball moved from that. So I had to replace it,” Wallace said.
Wallace was 2-over par at the time and battling the cutline to make the weekend and earn a payday for his efforts. It was one of those moments that happen in golf when nobody else would have seen the ball move, but Wallace did and that was enough, so, he blew the whistle on himself.
“You would hope that everyone's like that,” Wallace said. “You're doing it to protect the rest of the field. You're doing it for your caddie, your team, your family. I would rather miss the cut doing something like that by one shot, and then giving it my all for the rest, than making it and knowing something's happened.”
He added: “I'm happy with the outcome and it's the right thing to do.”
Thanks to a pep talk by Lane, Wallace didn’t let the penalty drag him down.
“He was like, ‘Let's make an amazing par.’ Hit a great shot out of there, a good chip, and then made a good putt from four, five feet,” said Wallace, who salvaged par and then rallied to make the cut.
“Didn't think I would be standing here making the cut after that,” Wallace said. “But a good bit of karma and managed to make some birdies coming in.”
Wallace canned a 22-foot birdie putt at 14, knocked his approach at 15 to 6 feet for another birdie and rolled in a 27-footer at 17 to shoot 68 and secure a weekend tee time.
“Maybe a bit of good karma coming my way,” he said.
Well deserved, indeed.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Matt Wallace's honest penalty brings good karma