The 2025 major season has now finished, with Scottie Scheffler emerging victorious at The Open Championship.
Scheffler is closing in on the career grand slam after his win at The Open, which took place at Royal Portrush.
It was a dominant display from start to finish from the world number one, who ended round one just one shot back.
Scheffler turned that into a one-shot lead after round two, before maintaining his four-shot lead after round three to the very end.
He has now become the latest winner of The Open at Royal Portrush, following in the footsteps of Shane Lowry in 2019.
Golf claimed to have ‘ridiculous’ rule which needs fixing after The Open concludes
The Irishman endured a roller-coaster event in Northern Ireland, which involved a two-shot penalty during his second round.
In the rough on the 12th, his ball appeared to move as he took a nearby practice swing, captured by television cameras.
Rex Hoggard has now shared his verdict on the controversy, saying on the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex & Lav: “I am loving the idea that he violated the rules. I saw it live on TV and this goes back to the naked eye rule.
“The idea you can only see something in super slow motion, if it’s zoomed in. Of course not, that is where we had to draw the line, that is where golf drew the line.
“I saw this in real time at normal speeds, it moved and it moved because he swung too close to it or caught a piece of grass the wrong way. That is the first penalty.
“He was not assessed a two-stroke penalty. He was assessed two one-stroke penalties and this is where golf needs to get it right.
“Okay, he moved the ball and he should have gotten a penalty. The idea that he did not see it and he got another penalty because then he played from the wrong position because he didn’t replace it, that’s ridiculous. It’s counterintuitive. Golf needs to fix this.
“Golf has gotten better over the last few years of getting out of its own way when it comes to rules of golf but it needs to do something about this.”
Ryan Lavner wants golf to make ‘easy fix’ after Shane Lowry controversy
His playing partner at the time on the iconic links course, Scheffler thought Lowry handled the incident well.
And other players supported Lowry after the controversy, with Ryan Lavner in agreement with Hoggard over the ruling issue.
He said: “I am with you on this. If the ball moves it moves. This clearly moved. The official had that gotcha moment, saying it clearly moved and you need to accept this.
“There was a 20 or 30 minute discussion because he was clearly frustrated that was the outcome and he didn’t want to be labelled a ‘cheat’ if he was fighting and didn’t necessarily accept it.
“What does seem superfluous though is that if you don’t know it moves, of course you are going to play it from the wrong spot.
“That just seems like an unnecessary stroke. It seems like an easy fix. That’s the thing I would like to see amended.”
Whether or not Lowry could have mounted a real challenge without the extra stroke will never be known, but it is highly unlikely.
The 2019 Claret Jug winner finished his week in T40 on two-under, a huge 15 shots behind champion Scheffler.
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