The Bahrain Championship went down to the wire, with a three-man, sudden-death playoff between overnight leader Calum Hill, Patrick Reed and Freddy Schott needed to determine the outcome.
Reed was the first one to blink, finding trouble from his tee shot by sending his ball left into a bunker. It didn’t get better for the American, hitting the lip of the bunker with his second before making a bogey.
Hill and Schott, meanwhile, both made par, leaving them to battle it out in a second playoff hole.
This time, it was Hill who found difficulties, first hitting his tee shot out of bounds, before striking the scoreboard on the way to the water with his third using his provisional. Ultimately, Hill’s unravelling left him facing a putt for triple-bogey.
It was a different story for Schott, who got to around eight feet with his third and all-but guaranteed the win.
In the end, the German didn’t even need to complete the formalities, because Hill decided he’d seen enough, and conceded the playoff to hand Schott his maiden DP World Tour title.
The practice is virtually unheard of, with playoffs almost always reaching a natural conclusion and a winner declared. So, how was Hill allowed to do it?
The answer lies in the Committee Procedures section of the Rules of Golf, which permits a player to concede a strokeplay playoff, meaning the opponent does not need to finish the hole to be declared the winner.
The clause in question is in section seven of the Committee Procedures, headed "After The Competition." It has a sub-section headed "Resolving Ties in Stroke Play," and that explains why Hill was entitled to concede the playoff.
It reads: “In a stroke-play play-off between two players, if one of them is disqualified or concedes defeat, it is not necessary for the other player to complete the play-off hole or holes to be declared the winner.”
Given Hill’s near-impossible position, it’s likely he conceded having recognized that Schott was effectively the winner at that stage, and certainly, his opponent didn’t appear worried about not having his moment to hole the winning putt.
On failing to win in regulation, he said afterwards: “I could have done it the regular way, that would have also been fine,” before adding: “But to do it this way feels even more special, so I'm just glad it happened this way."
Of course, the concession had no bearing on the outcome, with Schott now ninth in the season-long Race to Dubai rankings and Hill needing to come to terms with narrowly missing out on his third DP World Tour win.
