Joel Dahmen was penalized four strokes Thursday at the Shriners Children’s Open because of too many clubs in his bag.
Dahmen discovered on the fourth tee that he had more than the allowed 14 clubs. Under the Rules of Golf, he was penalized two strokes for each hole that the breach occurred, with four strokes being the maximum punishment.
Dahmen made pars on his first two holes but they were converted to a pair of double bogeys, immediately dropping him into last place at 4 over.
“You know, been traveling out here for a long time and never happened before. I’d like to blame (caddie) Geno [Bonnalie]. That would be the easy thing to do. It’s not his fault, either. I played Tuesday and Wednesday out here. We didn’t see it in there. It was an extra 4-iron, so I had two 4-irons in the bag,” Dahmen said after shooting 5-over 76.
“Why, I don’t know. I don’t know how it got there. It sucks. It sucks at the spot I’m in as well. Yeah, we got to [No.] 4 tee and I grabbed a water and I walked over to my bag and I saw a 4-iron that was in the wrong spot and our stuff is always in the right spot. It wasn’t in the right spot.”
The former Tour winner is currently 124th in the FedEx Fall standings, with 125 being the cutoff to earn fully exempt membership for 2025.
“It was one of those moments where you like want to lose it and you want to get mad, be mad at yourself, be mad at Geno, be mad at the world,” he said. “But you look around and people are donating a bunch of money to our foundation and life is not that bad. It’s a mistake. It’s going to happen. Unfortunately happened at this moment in time.”
There are four fall events remaining after this week’s stop in Las Vegas.