PGA Tour golfer given four-shot (!) penalty for breaking golf rule

PGA Tour golfer Joel Dahmen was given a four-stroke penalty during the first round of the Shriners Children's Open. 

It was discovered on the fourth tee box at TPC Summerlin that the 36-year-old had more than 14 clubs in his bag.

Dahmen had a total of 15 clubs in play after accidentally leaving in another 4-iron. 

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He started the tournament with two straight pars but his score was later changed to two double bogeys. 

The official PGA Tour communications team confirmed the penalty with a post on X on Thursday evening.

It read: "Joel Dahmen was penalized four strokes in the opening round of the Shriners Children's Open when it was discovered on the fourth tee that he had more than 14 clubs in his bag."

Dahmen has one PGA Tour victory to his name, which came in 2021 in the Dominican Republic at the Corales Puntacana Championship. 

He rose to superstardom when he was featured in season one and season two of the Netflix documentary Full Swing. 

His caddie is Geno Bonnalie. 

What did Dahmen say about what happened?

Dahmen ended up carding an opening round of 5-over 76. 

He admitted he was somewhat rattled after the penalty. 

But he refused to blame Bonnalie and described the situation as 'bizarr-o'. 

"Never happened to me before," he said. 

"I travel with 15, 16 clubs. I think most people out here do depending on conditions and courses.

"You know, [I have] been traveling out here for a long time and never happened before. I'd like it blame Geno. That would be the easy thing to do. 

"It's not his fault either. I played Tuesday and Wednesday out here. We didn't see it in there. It was an extra 4-iron, so I had two 4-irons in the bag."

He continued: "Why, I don't know. I don't know how it got there. It sucks. It sucks at the spot I'm in as well. Yeah, we got to four tee and I grabbed a water and I walked over to my bag and I saw a 4-iron that was in the wrong spot and our stuff is always in the right spot. It wasn't in the right spot.

"You know, you just want to get so mad and you want to get mad at everything. At the same time, [you have] just got to keep playing golf, and I didn't do a great job of that afterwards.

"It's tough to refocus. Shot 1-over if you take the penalties away, which is not very good out here today. Frustrating, disappointing, but if you play golf long enough weird stuff will happen out here."

Asked what his immediate reaction to discovering the extra club, Dahmen said: "I think there might have been a couple curse words, but I had a lot of people out supporting me today, helping our family foundation. 

"It was one of those moments where you like want to lose it and you want to get mad, be mad at yourself, be mad at Geno, be mad at the world.

"But you look around and people are donating a bunch of money to our foundation and life is not that bad. 

"It's a mistake. It's going to happen. Unfortunately happened at this moment in time.

"But, yeah, just stripped one down the middle after that and had plenty of birdie putts; we just didn't make them today. 

"Yeah, one of those where you live and learn. Geno feels terrible. I feel terrible.

"We'll tee it up tomorrow morning and try to make a bunch of birdies."

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