Cost of Golfing Too Slow? $240K for This Guy

Adrian Meronk took his time on his final shot of the LIV Golf Jeddah tournament and paid a penalty
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2024 12:13 PM CST
Slow Play Costs This Golfer Big Time
Adrian Meronk of Cleeks GC hits his shot from the fairway on the 18th hole during the second round of LIV Golf Jeddah at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club on Saturday in King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia.   (Photo by Matthew Harris/LIV Golf via AP)

Cheaters may or may not prosper, but dawdlers apparently don't prosper nearly as much as they could. Golf.com reports the tale of semi-woe of Adrian Meronk, who took home a tidy little paycheck of $508,750 this weekend in Saudi Arabia's LIV Golf Jeddah tournament—not a bad haul for a couple of days hitting the links, and about $95,000 more than he's brought home before. But, had the world's 50th-ranked golfer stepped up the pace a bit, the payday would've been a lot greater. What went down:

  • Things were going well: As the Wall Street Journal reports, the 30-year-old Meronk was on the final hole of the tourney and eyeing a birdie that would move him up on the leaderboard to a richer prize. He nailed the shot.
  • But there's a but: Meronk took his sweet time lining up that last shot and was hit with a slow-play penalty that cost him a stroke. That dropped him from a birdie to a par 5, which sent him from a two-way tie in fifth place to a six-way tie in sixth place. "On the second stroke of the 18th hole, Adrian Meronk ... received a time exceeding two minutes for his stroke," says an LIV release. "This exceeded the allotted time per the policy."
  • The cost: A mere $241,250, reports the Journal.
(More golf stories.)

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