Dustin Johnson plays wrong ball, gets 2-shot penalty at Sentry TOC

Dustin Johnson ran into trouble early in the second round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, incurring a two-shot penalty for playing the wrong ball from the hazard on the par-4 fourth hole.

Golf Channel's Jim "Bones" Mackay reported that a marshal misinformed Johnson as to where his ball was in the hazard. Johnson's actual ball was about 10 yards closer to the hole, though still in the hazard. Johnson asked the rules official whether he could still play his original ball without penalty, which he could not.

He made double bogey to drop to 3 over on his round.

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The violation comes two days after Johnson commented on the new Rules of Golf, which went into effect on Jan. 1. While Friday's penalty didn't violate a new or recently changed rule (players were actually exempt from penalty for playing a wrong ball from a hazard until 2008), Johnson did talk about how he had done little research in studying the new rules.

"I actually just looked at it for like a minute upstairs before I came down." Johnson said. "They've got a big poster in the locker room."

Johnson has been involved in rules situations before, most notably at the 2016 U.S. Open and 2010 PGA Championship.

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