A College Golfer Had To Strip Down And Go Swimming To Find His Ball Because Of Some Stupid NCAA Rule

For all those asking for evidence of today's antics. The camera adds 10lbs □ pic.twitter.com/8cRAIoSnY3

— DaveWicks (@DaveeeWicks) May 18, 2017

JacksonvilleUniversity- The day reached a tipping point on the fourth hole, the 13th hole of the day for David Wicks. The senior from Bexhill, England, picked up his ball after his first putt finished around three feet from the hole and placed it in his pocket. While waiting for the other golfers in his group to finish their putts, Wicks backed up towards the bunker, which has a lake just behind it. Wicks went to pull his scorecard out of his pocket, and as he reached for the card his ball fell out of his pocket, kicked off his shoe, and fell into the lake. NCAA rules state that a golfer must find their personal ball in order to continue the hole without any penalty. Wicks stripped down to his underwear and dove in with a five-minute time limit.

"David probably found 20 balls in the stretch of five minutes, but he never could find his," said Blackburn. "It was just a stroke of bad luck. After the five minute period ended the rules officials gave him a two-stroke penalty, which really could've hampered our comeback. But David rebounded, finishing the day with five straight pars to keep us in the race."

--------

The NCAA and golf - talk about a match made in a gamesman's personal hell. Hey, the governing body of the most self-important sport on the planet might make a college kid bob for Titleists like he's participating in the most low budget gameshow off all time, but at least they won't have any rules - no matter how ludicrous - get broken on their watch! I suppose you could argue that having a momentary, mid-round bout with your hand-eye coordination while spectating shouldn't reflect poorly on your score, but dumbass regulations that will never be corrected solely out of stubbornness are simply par for the course when it comes to the NCAA and/or the PGA. 

I don't know why David Wicks didn't just drop a little white lie and say that one of the two dozen balls he found was his. I think he's a maniac for being that devoted to the code (assuming there were no cameras that could prove him wrong), but I can respect him for internalizing his anger instead of going full-Elin Woods on the official that notified him of his two stroke penalty while he stood there smelling like swamp water. If that were me then Jacksonville University would been wishing they gave my scholarship to Happy Gilmore instead, because I would have been fishing for my ball with that referee's face as the bait for as long as it took for his body to go limp. ​So credit to David Wicks for taking it in stride and recovering to give his team a fighting chance at the finals.