Polish golfer loses $250,000 due to slow play

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

On March 3, the LIV Golf Jeddah tournament announced the prize money division 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 the final ranking to T5 with a bonus of 750,000 USD for each person.

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

Meronk suffered a slight loss in his record but a heavy loss in his bonus due to his slow play, which led to a reduction in his 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, plus 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 a warning to the Meronk group for being slow, starting from the 10th hole. Meronk is the second case, after Richard Bland in July 2023, to be penalized for slow play 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, to T23 with a bonus of $208,750.

Meronk debuted in the LIV Golf League a month ago. Coming to 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, shortly after graduating from Tennessee State University in the US. After three years on the second-tier Challenge Tour, he joined the DP World Tour in 2020. Up to that point, only Meronk had achieved 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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