Controversial Matt Fitzpatrick inquiry leads to Collin Morikawa’s two-stroke penalty

Collin Morikawa has denounced the “grey areas” in golf’s rule book following a two-shot penalty at the Hero World Challenge due to an incident involving Matt Fitzpatrick.

Morikawa received a two-stroke penalty before his final round in the Bahamas, as his caddie, Jonathan Jakovac, used notes from a greens book to aid Morikawa when lining up a putt.

Jakovac’s actions led to a penalty issued by Stephen Cox, the PGA Tour’s head referee, after being questioned by Morikawa’s playing partner, Matt Fitzpatrick.

Despite the penalty, Morikawa finished seventh at 12-under in the Albany Golf Club, eight shots back from winner Scottie Scheffler.

“We made the mistake,” Morikawa said. “From our understanding, it was fine to use a level on the practice green and see how putts break and write that down. Obviously it’s not.

“Stephen said apparently to JJ [Jonathan Jakovac] this morning that it was a grey area in all this. Why are there grey areas? There shouldn’t be grey areas in the rules, right? That’s what rules are for.

“I was a little mad at Stephen. He told us to meet him in the locker room. I was waiting in there for around five minutes and he didn’t show up and this was midway through my warm-up. If you are going to tell me some news, I think you should show up on time.”

Fitzpatrick finished the Tiger Woods-hosted event in a tie for fourth at 15-under.

He explained that his intervention had been prompted by a conversation with his putting coach earlier this year around the details of the rule Morikawa breached.

“I have wanted to use AimPoint earlier this year. I spoke to my putting coach, Phil Kenyon, about it. He told me that he was pretty certain I can’t write the numbers down or use the AimPoint numbers. So, you know, I didn’t do it.

“JJ, before we went out, explained why he did what he did or whatever. He said he had done his homework and he had gone out there and rolled the balls as what we were told you were allowed to do. I was like: ‘listen, that’s not the advice I was given’; I’m pretty sure he was given different advice.

“And then obviously yesterday it happened and I asked Coxy just to clarify what the situation was. I asked the question and he was like: ‘well, now you’ve asked the question, I need you to tell me what’s going on’. That was it.

“Listen, it’s nothing personal. Whether it was Tiger [Woods] or whoever, it’s just I wanted to know because I would have used it earlier this year.”