Scottie Scheffler hit the ball into Open hospitality. How the rules allowed him to birdie anyway
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SOUTHPORT, England — Scottie Scheffler received a unique ruling on the 17th hole at Royal Birkdale, which kept him in contention at The Open Championship on Sunday.
The rule allowed him to take a free drop after a shot that sailed approximately 30 yards left of his target and landed in a gated hospitality zone.
Since that area of the course is known as a “Temporary Immovable Obstruction” (TIO under the rules of golf), Scheffler utilized a rare subsection of the rule that does not require him to find his golf ball. It is listed as Model Local Rule F-23.
Rather than being penalized for a ball he did not recover, Scheffler walked away with a birdie on the par-5. The defending Open champion got to 8-under, needing a birdie on the final hole to tie clubhouse leader Cameron Young.
Scheffler subsequently bogeyed the 18th, finishing The Open at 7 under par.
Scheffler gets another.
A remarkable 17th hole for the Champion Golfer ends with a birdie and puts him just one back. pic.twitter.com/IfV9sPttu3
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 19, 2026
According to the R&A rules book, if a player’s ball is “known or virtually certain” to have come to rest in a TIO area, the player may take relief “using the estimated point where the ball last crossed the edge of the TIO.”
Scheffler got himself into the predicament first by hitting a drive into the left rough on the 17th hole — a shot that elicited visible frustration on the tee. Then, faced with a blind shot from an uphill lie at the bottom of one of Royal Birkdale’s dunes, Scheffler surprisingly took out a 3-wood.
He missed wide left, and the uncertainty about where the ball landed caused Scheffler to hit a provisional ball, which he ultimately did not need to use because of the TIO ruling. In an initial search for his first approach shot, Scheffler realized he did not need to find the ball, and yelled out to NBC’s on-course commentator John Wood to stop looking for it.
A referee with Scheffler’s group guided him through the free relief, showing him where he was legally allowed to drop. According to the rule, a player may take a drop at their nearest point of relief from the area, no closer to the hole, where both “physical and line of sight interference no longer exist.” He was allowed two club lengths from that point. He hit his third shot to 11 feet and made the birdie putt.
While Scheffler clearly did not intend to hit his ball into the area, TIO relief has come under criticism in recent years as golfers have been accused of using it to their advantage. With grandstands and hospitality areas surrounding so many greens at professional tournaments, “backboarding” has become a thing — intentionally hitting the ball beyond the green and to the grandstand, allowing the player a free drop into a lie of their choosing.
A similar ruling transpired at the 2024 Sony Open, when the leader, Carl Yuan, hit his ball into a grandstand on the 18th hole at Waialae Country Club, but it was not recovered. Yuan was permitted to take a free drop due to the virtual certainty exception. He ultimately finished tied for fourth in the event.