JOHN DALY WALKED off the course during the second round of the Austrian Open yesterday after a dispute with officials over a ball drop and two-shot penalty.
After completing the 15th hole, Daly was told by referee Andy McFee he had dropped his ball in the wrong place after it landed in an unplayable position under a TV tower.
Instead of accepting the two-shot penalty, Daly decided to quit. He was four-over before the penalty.
The 45-year-old, a two-time major champion nicknamed ‘Wild Thing,’ had thrown a club into the water after a mishit on the same hole.
Robert Coles of England shot a 7-under 65 for the best round of the day to share the lead with Joost Luiten of the Netherlands, Thomas Norret of Denmark and Gaganjeet Bhullar of India.
Daly was told of the problem when he was already at the next hole with playing partners Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain and Martin Wiegele of Austria.
McFee came on the course and asked Daly to go back to the 15th and show him exactly what he had done. After Daly explained it to him, the referee ruled that the drop was too close to the position where the ball initially landed and penalized the American.
“When I knew it was not a serious breach I said ‘You can carry on John’. But John did not want to do that,” McFee told Sky Sports. “He said ‘What’s the penalty?’ I told him it was a two-shot penalty, at which point he said, ‘I’m done.’”
Daly shook hands with Jimenez and Wiegele before walking off the course and leaving the Diamond Country Club with his wife and son.
“I had tried to help him with the drop, so I thought for a moment that maybe I had done something wrong,” said Jimenez, who shot a 69, five shots off the lead. “It definitely put me off for the remaining holes.”
