Local rule saves Bryson DeChambeau after he breaks driver during PGA Championship

Photo: Tom Pennington, Getty Images

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Bryson DeChambeau of the United States looks on during a practice round prior to the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park on August 04, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

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Bryson DeChambeau of the United States looks on during a practice round prior to the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park on August 04, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty

… more Photo: Tom Pennington, Getty Images

Local rule saves Bryson DeChambeau after he breaks driver during PGA Championship

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A local rule saved Bryson DeChambeau after the bulked-up tee box phenom broke his driver by leaning on it during the first day of the PGA Championship at San Francisco’s Harding Park.

The head on the driver snapped off from the shaft after DeChambeau briefly put some weight on the club following his drive on hole seven. After the club broke, DeChambeau was allowed to replace it thanks to a local rule that states players can replace damaged clubs so long as those clubs were not destroyed in an act of “abuse.”

“Starting in 2019, this is a local rule that’s in effect for the PGA Championship, for which a club is significantly damaged and breaking the pieces would meet the standard,” said PGA Rules Committee member Brad Gregory during the ESPN broadcast. “If this happens without abusing the club — if Bryson would have slammed it into the ground, for instance — that would be a different story. But since it happened without abusing it, he would be allowed to replace it.”

If I were a golf club, I would most certainly contend that getting leaned on by a player who gained 20 pounds during the quarantine and is now listed at 240 is an act of “abuse,” but I am not a golf club, and I do not make the rules.

DeChambeau received a favorable ruling after some tough luck at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis last week when he attempted to claim he deserved a free drop after a drive landed near a purported fire ant hill.

“I know there’s burrowing animal stuff here, especially ants, I see a red ant here,” DeChambeau told a rules official. “I’m stepping right on it, so I don’t know what this stuff is.”

DeChambeau was attempting to invoke the USGA’s “Dangerous Animal Condition” rule, which states, “A ‘dangerous animal condition’ exists when a dangerous animal (such as poisonous snakes, stinging bees, alligators, fire ants or bears) near a ball could cause serious physical injury to the player if he or she had to play the ball as it lies.”

The rules official was not persuaded, and DeChambeau had to play the shot. He had a similar back-and-forth with a rules official at the Memorial Tournament last month over whether or not multiple shots were out-of-bounds. He ended up taking a 10 on that hole.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting