STEPHEN COX: It was brought to our attention on the 8th hole that Matt had a club which was damaged, and he called over one of our officials on the 8th tee, I believe, who assessed the club face.
There was a minor crack in the actual center part of the face, of which you could not only see, but there was some degree of feel attached to that.
This is where the committee has to make a decision as to whether that club is significantly damaged. As opposed to the normal rules of golf that apply to everyone else, he would be able to replace that damaged club because it didn't happen in cases of abuse, for example.
But we on the PGA TOUR in very similar to other major golf tours around the world have a slightly stricter guideline in terms of when a player is permitted to take a damaged club out of play, and that club needs to be significantly damaged.
In our assessment, not only with the first official but also a couple of others including myself, that threshold of being significantly damaged hadn't been significant met. Although there was a small crack in the face, there was no separation in the metals, and on that basis, that threshold wasn't met, so his only choice in that case was to continue using that club.
Now, if that club were to get worse, then we would obviously continue to reassess, and at that point he may have been able to have taken it out, but in his case, I think he chose not to continue to use it and proceeded with his 3-wood from then on.
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