Open champion Xander Schauffele has been accused of ‘abusing’ a golf rule change by British player Eddie Pepperell.
Pepperell told The Chipping Forecast: “The only thing that I’ve got negatively to say about Xander Schauffele and you may have picked up on this, is how often he just bangs down spike marks that simply cannot be there from inside three feet.
“Now that is something that, I’m afraid, the rule change is being abused there I’m afraid to say.”
Asked to expand, Pepperell said: “Well, obviously in golf, you never used to be able to tap down spike marks and they changed the rule to be able to tap down spike marks which I was never really in favour of.
“But they’ve made the decision but now you see, if you watch Xander closely, he does it all the time.
“As soon as he has a putt inside three foot he’ll go and put quite a lot of pressure down with his putter and, more than just tap a spike mark, he’s actually putting quite a lot of impact on the ground. That’s the one reason why [I believe] that rule should never have changed.”
Pepperell later insisted: “I’m not accusing the guy of cheating. And I’m also not saying that if he wasn’t doing that that he wouldn’t still be winning these tournaments.
“I think he would, but, it’s just… you don’t see any other player as frequently as he does it.”
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