Why ‘mud balls’ are angering the world’s best players at PGA Championship

World number one Scottie Scheffler hit out at the decision not to allow preferred lies, saying “mud balls” cost him two shots in the first round of the US PGA Championship.

Despite torrential rain disrupting practice rounds on Monday and Tuesday, tournament organisers opted not to allow players to "lift, clean and place" balls in the fairway at Quail Hollow.

That raised the prospect of more complaints about "mud balls", as voiced by Jordan Spieth at last month's Masters, and they duly arrived after Scheffler completed an opening 69.

Scheffler and defending champion Xander Schauffele both double-bogeyed the 16th after seeing their second shots veer well off target and into the water left of the green.

The final member of the marquee group, Masters champion Rory McIlroy, avoided the water but also made a double bogey and Scheffler joked: "I kept the honour with making a double on a hole.

"And I think that will probably be the first and last time I do that in my career unless we get some crazy weather conditions.

"It's one of those deals where it's frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it's going to go.

"But I don't make the rules. I just have to deal with the consequences of those rules. I did a good job of battling back today and not letting a bad break like that, which cost me a couple of shots, get to me."

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Scheffler later emphasised his unhappiness with the situation when he was asked whether he thought the PGA of America had considered allowing preferred lies.

"By the way, this is going to be the last answer that I give on playing it up (preferred lies) or down," Scheffler said.

"On a golf course as (well) conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up because most of the lies you get out here are all really good.

"So I understand how a golf purist would be, 'oh, play it as it lies'.

"But I don't think they understand what it's like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden due to a rules decision that is completely taken away from us by chance.

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"In golf, there's enough luck throughout a 72-hole tournament that I don't think the story should be whether or not the ball is played up or down.

"When I look at golf tournaments I want the purest, fairest test of golf, and in my opinion maybe the ball today should have been played up."

Schauffele also expressed his frustration with the conditions and predicted the problem would only get worse.

"It sucks that you're kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway," Schauffele said.

"The mud balls are going to get worse as the place dries up. They're going to get in that perfect cake zone to where it's kind of muddy underneath and then picking up mud on the way through.

"Maybe [you can] hit it a little bit lower off the tee, but then the ball doesn't carry or roll anywhere, so then you sacrifice distance. It's a bit of a crapshoot."

PA