Polish golfer loses $250,000 due to slow shot

Saudi Arabia Adrian Meronk's prize money has been reduced by around $250,000 after he was given extra strokes for exceeding the time limit in the final round of the 2024 LIV Golf Jeddah.

On March 3, the LIV Golf Jeddah tournament announced the prize money table, in which the cup and 4 million USD belonged to Joaquin Niemann with a score of -17, while Meronk received 508,750 USD for T6 position with a score of -10.

This is an unfortunate result for Meronk. Because, if not counting the penalty stroke, he would have finished -11 like Jon Rahm and changed his final ranking to T5 with a bonus of 750,000 USD for each person.

Merronk looks ahead to a putt during the final round of LIV Golf Jeddah on March 3. Photo: nationalclubgolfer — Merronk looks ahead to a putt during the final round of LIV Golf Jeddah on March 3. Photo: *nationalclubgolfer*

Meronk suffered a slight loss in performance but a heavy loss in bonus money due to his slow play, which led to a reduction in score on the penultimate hole. There, the referee penalized Meronk a stroke when he took more than two minutes to complete his second shot. According to LIV Golf League rules, the maximum time for a shot is 40 seconds, an additional 10 seconds if the golfer is the first in the group.

Based on that, the referee team changed the score of the penultimate hole from birdie to par for Meronk.

They issued the penalty after giving a warning and then warning to the Meronk group for being behind schedule, starting on the 10th hole. Meronk is the second case, after Richard Bland in July 2023, to be penalized for playing slowly on the LIV Golf League since its inaugural year in 2022. But in the first case, Bland was only deducted about $20,000 for falling one place, down to T23 with a bonus of $208,750.

Meronk debuted in the LIV Golf League a month ago. In this arena, he accepted to leave the DP World Tour despite being famous with four championships and the title of Best Golfer of the 2023 season.

Meronk, 30, turned professional in 2016, right after graduating from Tennessee State University, USA. After three years on the second-tier Challenge Tour, he joined the DP World Tour in 2020. Up to that point, Meronk was the only one to achieve such a career milestone in Polish golf history.

To date, Meronk is also the only Polish golfer to have "participated" in all four majors. However, in the prestigious tournament group, he is still obscure with his best achievement being T40 The Open 2023.

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