Brooks Koepka saw a tee shot end up in an extremely unusual place during this weekend's Farmers Insurance Open.- Koepka hit his drive out to the right off the tee, and his ball ended up nestled in a cameraman's shoe.
- He eventually took a drop and made a par on the hole.
Brooks Koepka was forced to take one of the more unusual drops of his golfing career this past weekend after his ball nestled in the shoe of a cameraman.
Playing during Friday's second round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in southern California, Koepka hit his tee shot on the 16th hole out to the right, with TV cameras losing the ball in flight.
Walking down the hole expecting to see the ball nestled in the rough, Koepka was surprised to see that his ball had flown directly into a cameraman's spare shoe, which was perched on the back of a
"Did it fly in there?" - Koepka asked a cameraman, while looking confused by how that could have happened.
Unsure exactly how to proceed, Koepka called a rules official over, who ruled that he should take a free drop of his ball within a club length of the shoe.
There was only one problem, though: Koepka, understandably, didn't want to reach his hand inside a stranger's sweaty, used shoe.
"Who's shoe is it? I ain't sticking my hand in there. You can grab it out of your nasty ass shoe!" - he said, drawing laughter from those around him.
A cameraman then volunteered that it was, in fact, his shoe and pulled the ball out for Koepka.
You can watch footage of the shoe incident below:
The former world number one and four-time major winner went on to hit his post-shoe shot just short of the green on the par 4 hole before chipping close and holing a putt for par.
Sadly for Koepka, that wasn't enough to keep him in the tournament. He finished four-over-par after two rounds and missed the cut.
Koepka's shoe ball is somewhat reminiscent of a 2014 incident in which a tee shot from the then-world number one Rory McIlroy nestled itself in the pocket of a spectator.
This past weekend's tournament was eventually won by Koepka's countryman Patrick Reed, who took victory in a somewhat controversial style.
During Saturday's third round, Reed used a questionable interpretation of the rules to his advantage, claiming that his ball had become embedded in deep rough, allowing him to take a free drop and improve his lie.
However, video footage showed that Reed's ball bounced on landing, leading to questions as to whether it should have been classed as embedded.
The PGA Tour said on Saturday that Reed had taken the correct actions, but many fans disagreed.