LOS ANGELES – Standing in the 15th fairway, Joel Dahmen was about to settle into his shot when a ball skittered past.
It was the tee shot of the Genesis Invitational leader, Adam Scott.
“We were in plain sight,” Dahmen said after the round. “If you get around the (fairway) bunker you can’t see anything. But sometimes when you’re leading, the adrenaline is going and you just the ball. I don’t know. I wasn’t bothered by it.”
Clearly not. Dahmen went on to birdie the hole, then tacked on another on 16 to finish in a tie for fifth, three shots back of Scott.
But it still was odd, the sight of a group being hit into late in the final round of a Tour event. Typically, marshals or a member of the TV crew will signal when it’s clear to fire away.
“We raised our hand to make sure that they saw us,” Dahmen said. “I looked around and there were 15 people in the fairway, so I don’t know what it was.”
Scott said that he couldn’t see anyone in the group – he couldn’t see Russell Henley in the left rough, getting relief, and couldn’t see Dahmen or Harold Varner III in the middle of the fairway, 300 yards out.
“That might sound funny, they’re standing in the middle of the fairway, but it just looked like they were part of the gallery,” Scott said. “I wasn’t really giving them a hurry-up, although it was pretty slow out there today.”