Joel Dahmen Assessed Four-Stroke Penalty for Extra Club at Shriners Children’s Open

The pressure is mounting for Joel Dahmen as he fights to secure his status in the FedExCup Fall. In a frustrating turn of events, Dahmen was penalized four strokes during Thursday’s opening round of the Shriners Children’s Open after it was discovered on the fourth tee that he had more than the allowed 14 clubs in his bag.

Dahmen had made routine pars on the par-4 first and second holes at TPC Summerlin, but two penalty strokes were added to each hole, turning his pars into double-bogey 6s.

“Bizarr-o,” Dahmen said after the round. “This has never happened to me before. I travel with 15, 16 clubs, and I think most guys out here do depending on conditions and courses. I’d like to blame Geno [his caddie], but it’s not his fault either.”

Dahmen self-reported the violation after realizing he had an extra 4-iron in his bag.

“It was an extra 4-iron. Why it was there, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s frustrating, especially with where I’m at right now. You just want to get mad at everything.”

According to Rule 4.1b(1) of the Rules of Golf, the general penalty is two strokes per hole where the violation occurred, with a maximum of four penalty strokes per round.

Dahmen entered the week ranked No. 124 in the FedExCup Fall standings, dangerously close to the cutoff for full status. Players who finish in the top 125 after The RSM Classic in November will earn full exemptions on the 2025 PGA TOUR, while those ranked 126-150 will have conditional status and full Korn Ferry Tour exemptions.

This season, Dahmen has made 16 cuts in 25 starts, with his best finish being a T10 at the RBC Canadian Open in June. The Washington native has 205 career TOUR starts and one victory, at the 2021 Corales Puntacana Championship, which guarantees him limited conditional status as a past champion. However, this only provides a handful of starts each season.

“It’s a mistake, and mistakes happen. Unfortunately, it happened at a bad time,” Dahmen said. “Geno feels terrible, I feel terrible, but we’ll be back tomorrow morning trying to make a bunch of birdies.”