Joel Dahmen Docked Four Strokes at Shriners Children's Open for Rare Penalty

Dahmen lamented the error after the first round on Thursday.

PGA Tour golfer Joel Dahmen was penalized four strokes on Thursday for accidentally carrying an extra club in his bag. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

Joel Dahmen shot a round of 72 on Thursday in the opening round of the Shriners Children's Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, NV.

The round of +1 would have been good for a tie for 107th after Thursday's round. It was not a great day for Dahmen to begin with, as the top 97 and ties shot even par or better on Thursday. Taylor Pendrith shot a -10, 61 to lead the tournament after the first round.

To make matters worse for Dahmen, he was penalized four strokes at the conclusion of his round for carrying a 15th club, one above the permitted 14 clubs in the bag for a PGA Tour event. Dahmen accidentally had an extra 4-iron in his bag, so he had to sign for a +5, 76 instead. He sits in 132nd place out of 133 golfers heading into Friday's round, where he'll have to shoot a very low round to make the cut. To add insult to injury, Dahmen is 124th out of 125 golfers in the FedEx Cup fall standings. If he drops out of the top 125 in the fall standings, he will lose his full PGA Tour status for the 2025 season.

Dahmen lamented the mistake, but refused to blame his popular caddie Geno Bonnalie for the error.

"I don't know how it got there. It sucks. It sucks at the spot I'm in as well," Dahmen said after the round. "I would like to blame Geno, that would be the easiest thing to do, but it's not actually his fault either. I played Tuesday and Wednesday out here, and we didn't see it in there. It was one of those moments where you want to lose it, and you want to get mad. You want to be mad at yourself, you want to get mad at Geno, you want to get mad at the world. I have a Clif Bar that's probably two months old in htere. There's probably a banana that's rotting in that golf bag. There's all sorts of crap in there," Dahmen quipped.

"If you play golf long enough, weird stuff's going to happen out here."

An unfortunate 4-stroke penalty for Joel Dahmen leads to a 5-over first-round @ShrinersOpen.

He came into the week at No. 124 in the #FedExCup Fall standings, needing to stay inside the top 125 in order to… pic.twitter.com/2MI6k2Banj

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 18, 2024

Dahmen will need to shoot a low one on Friday to try to retain his full PGA Tour status.

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