feature-image

Imago

feature-image

Imago

Beau Hossler is 122nd in the FedExCup standings, and this week is his last shot at the playoffs: win the Wyndham Championship, or go home for the season. On Saturday, with a storm rolling in and Hossler sharing the 54-hole lead, a toddler wandered onto the 18th fairway and nearly complicated things.

Watch What’s Trending Now!

On Saturday, due to inclement weather, the round was suspended twice. When the alarm blew in the afternoon, indicating a new storm heading their way, the 54-hole co-leader, Hossler, was on the 18th fairway. He marked his lie with a white flag, retrieved the ball, and waited. In a video shared by Golf Channel on X, a toddler crossed the ropes and tripped, stepping on the middle of Hossler’s marked lie. No, Hossler did not laugh.

ADVERTISEMENT

Before the first weather delay, Hossler was leading the group. By the time he reached the 17th, where he had hit his tee shot into the rough, another delay of 1 hour and 20 minutes was announced. When the round resumed, he contacted a rules official and explained that he had already retrieved his ball when the toddler stepped on his lie.

Your new favorite golf game — The Daily Nine
83% of our readers couldn't break par yesterday

Changing winds, tricky bunkers, and quirky breaks test every shot. Beat par, compare scores, and return tomorrow for a new challenge.

TEE OFF HERE

The official countered the position; however, Hossler defended himself. In a conversation caught on the CBS microphones, Hossler is heard explaining, “Look, I’m not saying it’s better or worse, I was just letting you know that that area, after picking up the ball, she was standing on it. It was sitting like every other lie, just halfway down.”

ADVERTISEMENT

The two had a back-and-forth before the rules official agreed and granted Hossler a free relief. Hossler was then allowed to move his ball just inches away from what was assumed to be his actual lie before the toddler stomped over it. Hossler made a putt for par, maintaining his 54-hole co-lead with Michael Brennan.

Given that a fan moved the ball, Hossler wasn’t going to face a penalty anyway. Rule 9.6 says that if it’s virtually certain that a fan has done so, then there is no penalty and the ball must be returned to its original spot. That’s exactly what happened in Hossler’s case. A fan reached for Rory McIlroy’s ball at this year’s U.S. Open in a similar mix-up, apparently mistaking it for a souvenir before the crowd talked her out of it. Hossler has had rougher luck of his own: his best finish on Tour is still a playoff loss at the 2018 Houston Open, where he stood as co-leader with one hole left before a bunker shot found the water.

ADVERTISEMENT

However, Hossler will hope there’s no repeat of this. Especially given Hossler’s precarious chance this week.

Beau Hossler is fighting a chaotic week

Of course, the weather delays did little to soothe everyone’s nerves on Saturday. The two delays, totaling 1 hour, 53 minutes, made the already-difficult rough wet as well, for instance. And the 31-year-old Beau Hossler was one of the pros to have felt the issue.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It was incredibly chaotic. I got off to a really poor start as far as my ball-striking. Really settled in nicely, and then I think clearly the delays ruined the momentum a bit,” Hossler said, as per Athlon Sports.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It’s your life’s work more or less, right? But at the same time, it’s golf, man. I’m very lucky to be out here playing awesome golf courses, meeting great people, trying to compete and live out our dreams.”

The dream is to win this tournament. Anything less than that won’t get him into Memphis next week. The Wyndham Championship is the last event of the PGA Tour’s regular season, and only the top 70 in the FedExCup standings move on to the playoffs, which open with the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis. Sitting 122nd, Hossler needs the win to leap into that group. And there’s urgency in this realization as well. The Wyndham Championship week is his 252nd start on the PGA Tour, yet he’s still waiting for his maiden title.

ADVERTISEMENT

He also leads the field in SG: Putting, up more than seven strokes through three rounds, which goes a long way toward explaining how he made it through Saturday’s chaos. Sunday is a different test: closing out his first PGA Tour win, with a playoff spot riding on it.

ADVERTISEMENT

Share this with a friend:

Link Copied!

ADVERTISEMENT

Written by

author-image

Sudha Kumari

946 Articles

Sudha Kumari is a Golf Writer at EssentiallySports, where she has filed over 700 bylines covering the sport's biggest stages. She holds a Master's in English Literature, which shows in how she turns a day's leaderboard movement into a clear, readable story. Her live coverage of the 2025 Masters, when Rory McIlroy faltered on the brink of the career Grand Slam, is among her best-known work. She follows both the sport's history and its week-to-week shifts, and her writing gives readers the context behind a result rather than only the score. A lifelong golf fan, Sudha believes today's dark horses are tomorrow's legends, and she splits her coverage between the established names and the players starting to break through. When she isn't tracking tournament trends, she is digging into player backstories, working from the view that the game is as much about the resilience behind a shot as the number on the card.

Know more

Edited by

editor-image

Pulkit Prabhav

ADVERTISEMENT