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The tournament proved to be a rollercoaster for Lowry – featuring powerful drives, tough setbacks, and raw emotion. After a promising start, his momentum was halted by an embedded ball that cost him a potential birdie opportunity and triggered his furious reaction.

Buried Ball Drama at PGA Championship

Lowry’s perfect drive on the 8th hole landed just 50 meters from the pin, setting up what should have been a simple approach. Instead, he faced a nightmare scenario when his ball became deeply embedded in another player’s pitch mark. Under golf’s strict rules, players only get free relief when embedded in their own pitch mark, forcing Lowry to play the difficult shot as it lay.

The Infamous “F*ck This Place!” Moment

His subsequent approach shot – normally a sure thing – missed the green entirely, sticking in the front bunker. This prompted Lowry’s explosive “Fuck this place!” outburst as he violently slammed his club into the ground, tearing up a large divot. While he executed the bunker shot, the ball landed well past the pin. His first putt to save par came up short, requiring another stroke to hole out.
This costly bogey ultimately proved decisive, with Lowry missing the cut by the narrowest of margins in a heartbreaking conclusion to his tournament.
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Not being able to take relief from someone else’s pitch mark is one of the worst rules in golf. Tough break for Shane Lowry.

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— Tour Pro 🏌️‍♂️ (@OfficialTourPro) May 16, 2025

After an opening-round 79 at the PGA Championship, Phil Mickelson was fighting to make the weekend cut – and initially appeared up for the challenge. Four birdies in five holes had him three under for the day and building momentum. But the greenside bunker on the 12th hole had other plans.

After reaching the sand with his approach shot, “Lefty” needed a staggering four attempts just to escape. Each time, his ball caught the lip and rolled back down. When he finally blasted out on his sixth stroke, he overshot the green completely. Two putts later, he carded a quadruple-bogey 8 that effectively ended his tournament.

Even back-to-back birdies on the next two holes couldn’t salvage his round after the disastrous 12th, though they did briefly get him back under par for the day.

PGA Championship: Watch Phil Mickelson’s Quadruple-Bogey Disaster

YouTube golfer Phil Mickelson took 4 strokes to get out of the bunker 👀

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— Tour Golf (@PGATUOR) May 16, 2025

The 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club is making a bold statement: Every ticket includes complimentary meals—outdoing even the legendary prices of the Masters. But how does the system work, and what does it mean for fans?

PGA Championship 2025: All-Inclusive for Golf Fans

The offer is part of the Championship+ Ticket, which has been tested since 2022 and is now available to all attendees for the first time. PGA Championship Director Jason Soucy explained the concept to the Charlotte Observer: The goal is to avoid long concession lines, provide a hassle-free experience, and invite fans to eat to their heart’s content.

A Wide Selection for Every Appetite

Alongside classic fare like hot dogs and cheeseburgers, the tournament offers gourmet creations such as Ham on Ciabatta with Gruyère cheese and honey-mustard dressing. Health-conscious fans can enjoy plant-based options like the Beyond Burger or a fresh Asian salad.
For lighter cravings, there’s a variety of crunchy snacks and sweet treats.

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Alcoholic Drinks: A Pricier Luxury

According to Golfweek, beer, cocktails and wine will cost fans extra. A basic beer starts at $12.50, Cocktails go up to $18.50 and wine is priced from $13.50. For an an added touch, guests can get their drink in a souvenir cup for $5 more.

Family-Friendly Golf Event

At the 2025 PGA Championship, up to two children under 15 get free admission with a paying adult—and they also enjoy the complimentary food. This makes the tournament not just a sporting highlight but also a family-friendly outing, positioning it as the perfect event for golf fans of all ages.

Due to the heavy rainfall in the run-up to the PGA Championship 2025, the course at Quail Hollow Golf Club is still wet and the surface is soft. As a result, balls are often digging in and considerable amounts of mud and dirt are sticking to the balls. This happened particularly frequently in Round 1 of the PGA Championship 2025 – the result was frustrated players who publicly voiced their displeasure, most notably Xander Schauffele.

PGA Championship 2025: Mudballs punish good shots

Normally, the “pick and clean” rule applies in such conditions: the ball may be picked up, cleaned and put back down near its original position. But at majors, this is avoided at all costs. The PGA of America announced in an official statement on the evening before the first round that there would be no preferred lies – so the ball must always be played as it lies.

However, if there is a lump of mud on the ball, and especially if it gets between the clubface and the ball, the ball flight and spin behavior become unpredictable. This was also the case for Xander Schauffele, who played together with Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in the star group. Both he and Scheffler had mud stuck to the ball on the 16th. Schauffele described the situation as “ridiculous” in an interview after the round:
“It is what it is, and a lot of guys are dealing with it, but it’s just unfortunate to be hitting good shots and to pay them off that way. It’s kind of stupid.”

He mishit his second shot into the left water hazard and ended up making double bogey. “I wouldn’t want to go in the locker room because I’m sure a lot of guys aren’t super happy with sort of the conditions there.” And: “It sucks that you’re kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway.”

Negative effect of mud balls scientifically proven

Paul Wood, Vice President of Engineering at Ping, conducted research into the physics of mud balls and experimented with different conditions. The result: Overall, a significant reduction in flight distance was found, as the mud impairs energy transfer: It “swallows” some of the power that the club transfers to the ball. The direction is also affected: it is impossible to predict how a mud ball will fly – overall, there was a significantly greater dispersion than with clean balls. The mud makes the moment of impact and ball flight more inconsistent.

Scottie Scheffler also had to contend with a dirty ball on 16:
“It’s one of those deals where it’s frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it’s going to go. I understand it’s part of the game, but there’s nothing more frustrating for a player. You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision all of a sudden you have absolutely no control over where that golf ball goes. But I don’t make the rules. I just have to deal with the consequences of those rules.”

⛳️🏌️ #WATCH: World #1 Scottie Scheffler sounds off on mud balls at The PGA Championship: "You shouldn't be punished for hitting it in the fairway!" @SchefflerFans

Do you agree?l

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— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) May 15, 2025

But not all professionals share this opinion: Aaron Rai, who started with a round of 67, said that the PGA of America rules officials knew what they were doing. PGA Tour pro Alex Smalley also claimed: “It didn’t really affect many shots out there.”

However, with the weather forecast now promising dry and sunny conditions, the course will continue to dry out. But even this prospect did not make Xander Schauffele optimistic: “The mud balls are going to get worse. They’re going to get worse as the plays dries up. They’re going to get in that perfect cake zone to where it’s kind of muddy underneath and then picking up mud on the way through.”

Teeing off in Thursday’s featured morning group at the 107th PGA Championship, the world’s top three players — Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and Xander Schauffele — arrived at a rain-soaked Quail Hollow Club with lofty expectations and major pedigree. But on a damp and demanding layout, the trio encountered a rude welcome from “The Green Mile,” and particularly the par-4 16th, where all three made double bogey in stunning succession.

For Scheffler, currently ranked World No. 1, the round was a rollercoaster of momentum shifts. The Texan carded everything from chip-in eagle to water-ball double, ultimately grinding out a two-under 69 that kept him well in contention at T20 despite the chaos.

“I kept the honor with making a double on a hole,” Scheffler quipped afterward. “I think that will probably be the first and last time I do that in my career — unless we get some crazy weather conditions.”

Trouble on the 16th of the PGA Championship 2025: A Shared Collapse

Coming off an electric eagle on the par-5 15th — a 35-foot chip-in from short and right of the green — Scheffler appeared poised to climb the leaderboard. Instead, the 16th handed him an unwelcome dose of reality. After a perfect drive into the fairway, he found his approach shot sinking into the water, citing a muddied ball as the culprit.

“I hit it in the middle of the fairway, you’ve got mud on your ball, and it’s tough to control where it goes after that,” Scheffler explained. “You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision, all of a sudden you have absolutely no control. But I don’t make the rules. I just have to deal with the consequences.”

He wasn’t alone. Playing partners McIlroy and Schauffele also found disaster on the 535-yard hole. McIlroy’s drive hooked left into thick rough, leaving him with a steep sidehill lie. Attempting to escape, he slipped in the mud and barely advanced the ball, leading to a scrambling double bogey. Schauffele’s approach also found water from the fairway, undone by a similar mud ball — a rare display of collective vulnerability from golf’s elite.

“It’s not every day that one hole brings the top three players in the world to their knees,” one broadcaster aptly put it.

A Debate Over Mud and Rules

The conditions at Quail Hollow, already softened by days of heavy rain, led to significant player frustration over the decision not to allow preferred lies — colloquially known as “lift, clean, and place.”

Scheffler didn’t hide his dismay: “In American golf, it’s significantly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand-capped, there’s going to be a lot of mud on the ball,” he said. “When you think about the purest test of golf, I don’t personally think hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway should get you punished for it.”

He later emphasized, however, that he wouldn’t let the ruling derail his tournament. “It cost me two shots today, and if I let it bother me, it could’ve cost me five more. But I didn’t. I just moved forward.”