By all accounts, Brian Campbell and Tom Kim had plenty of reasons to arrive at the VidantaWorld Mexico Open on Thursday feeling happy and carefree. Campbell is set to get married next week, while Kim recently won a gold medal at the Asian Games, securing an exemption from South Korea’s military service. And it showed in their performances on Thursday.
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Campbell carded a 4-under 67 in a largely bogey-free round, and Kim matched him with an identical score. The two were paired in the same threesome for the opening round, carrying their momentum into Friday’s second round. For much of the day, things continued to go smoothly for both. That was until they reached the par-4 ninth, their final hole of the day.
Kim and Campbell had pulled their approach shots into the same greenside bunker. According to a report from Golf Digest, each player stepped up and blasted the other’s ball out of the sand, only realizing the switch once they reached the green. This prompted them to consult a rules official, and they were immediately hit with two-stroke penalties for their mistake.
The pair had violated Rule 6.3c(1), which covers what happens when a player makes a stroke at a wrong ball during stroke play. And besides the two-stroke penalty, any shots played with the wrong ball do not count toward the player’s score. The player must complete the hole by playing their original, correct ball as it lies or by taking appropriate relief.
Had Kim and Campbell failed to recognize their mistake and played from the green or signed and returned their scorecards without correcting the error, both could have faced disqualification. Thankfully, it never came to that. The pair realized what had gone wrong, trudged back into the sand, and played their balls correctly.
Both then scrambled up and down to card matching double bogeys, turning what could have been a clean finish into a frustrating six. The identical and costly blunders left them signing for matching 68s and sitting at 7-under. Still, the pair was comfortably inside the cut line but two strokes worse off than they might have been.
Ultimately, the damage to their tournament positions was limited. However, Golf Channel analyst Brendon de Jonge was quick to remind them that such mistakes were entirely avoidable.
“It’s blame on both guys here,” de Jonge said during the broadcast. “It’s one of those things, especially if you’re in a bunker, you’ve got to pay close attention to what you’re doing. You’re looking down at the lie; you’ve got to figure it out. Which golf ball is yours? It’s really a mistake you cannot afford to make.”
Heading into Moving Day, Brian Campbell, the defending champion, and Tom Kim sit tied for 26th, seven shots behind tournament leader Andrew Novak. While the blunder marked a rare moment for the pair, they are far from the first golfers to hit the wrong ball during a tournament.
PGA Tour players who have made the same blunder in the past
In recent memory, three notable PGA Tour stars have each fallen victim to one of golf’s rarest and most embarrassing rules breaches: playing the wrong ball. In January 2019 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Dustin Johnson pulled his tee shot into the rough on the fourth hole. A marshal directed him to a ball showing a TaylorMade logo.
Johnson assumed it was his, hacked it back into play, then discovered his actual ball a few yards away. The ensuing two-stroke penalty turned the hole into a double bogey and contributed to a 74. Five years later, at the same event in 2024, Justin Rose made a similar mistake on the seventh hole. Both he and playing partner Taylor Moore had similar Titleist Pro V1s in the right fairway.
Rose hit what he thought was his ball onto the green, only to realize it was Moore’s. He corrected the error in time to avoid disqualification but still incurred the two-stroke penalty and carded a double bogey. Then the next year, again at The Sentry, Will Zalatoris and Cam Davis produced an even rarer double mix-up on the par-5 15th.
Each played the other’s ball short of the green. Both received two-stroke penalties, made bogeys instead of likely birdies, and lost a combined fortune in prize money and FedEx Cup points. These incidents underline how even the world’s best players can momentarily lose track of their own golf ball.