Two-and-a-half-million dollars undeposited. A win in the eyes of the Official World Golf Ranking unrecorded. 

But Sahith Theegala seemingly earned countless folks’ applause.

And a good night’s rest. 

After a much-discussed move from the 26-year-old pro during Saturday’s third round of the Tour Championship, the summation of it will likely read something like this then: It was both costly — and priceless. On East Lake Golf Club’s 3rd hole, after dumping his tee ball into a fairway bunker, Theegala had self-reported a rules infraction after he brushed sand on the takeaway of his second stroke, and the fallout from a two-stroke deduction was a bit extraordinary.

There was the money. The Tour Championship is both the PGA Tour’s season-ending event and its highest-paying tournament. Dropped shots are costly, especially those from players near the top of the leaderboard, where the payouts are in the seven figures, and that was the spot Theegala found himself after he rallied after the penalty to fire an impressive five-under 66 on Saturday. Sunday, during the final round, he was two better and officially finished third, six shots behind winner Scottie Scheflfer — and two behind runner-up Collin Morikawa. 

Two. The same number of strokes he dropped due to the infraction. The monetary damage for it? Morikawa earned $12.5 million and Theegala brought home $7.5 million, but had they tied for second, each pro would have cashed for $10 mill — meaning Theegala’s call lost him the $2.5 million. 

Then there’s the leaderboard. The Tour Championship plays its event under a staggered-start format, with pros beginning a certain number of shots under par based on their play during the year — but the OWGR recognizes only the tally without the bonus strokes. There, Morikawa won, with a 22-under score, one shot better than Theegala, and you can do the math had no penalty occurred. 

Demoralizing? Depends on your point of view, of course. 

More than a few observers applauded Theegala. The praise came via social media. It was heard on NBC’s broadcast on Sunday. 

Said analyst Brad Faxon as Theegala played the 18th hole: “Makes you love golf when you see that. Rarely do you hear about that in any other sport.”

Said announcer Dan Hicks: “It just gives you further idea the quality guy that Sahith Theegala is.”

Said Faxon: “You can look in the mirror when you get up, that’s for sure.”

Said Hicks: “It’s about doing the right thing for Theegala, and that’s all that mattered.”

Theegala’s girlfriend, Julianna Chan, also weighed in. On Saturday, she posted a TikTok video where she interviewed Theegala about the moment, then added this: “Obviously Sahith is a man of integrity.”

All of which raises this thought: 

What if Theegala had simply moved on after the bunker shot? Kept quiet. No one saw what happened — and even Theegala himself wasn’t 100 percent sure he’d done anything wrong, putting it at “98, 99 percent” certainty that he’d brushed just grains of sand.    

It wasn’t an option. 

Saturday night, a reporter notably had this exchange with him, with the question written in italics, and Theegala’s response below it. 

“Would you sleep badly if you hadn’t called it on yourself?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” he started.  

“I was describing the situation — no matter what the outcome was, I needed to know what the actual rule was,” Theegala continued. “Even though me and Xander [playing partner Xander Schauffele] thought it’s just whatever, it’s fine, you touched a grain of sand, didn’t mean to move it, you’re good. I decided to call the rules official right away on that green. But either way, I would have asked the rules officials after the round, too, or somehow found out what the rule was, and if I didn’t ask a rules official and I went back home and looked up the rule — it was sitting in my mind.

“Again, intuition, it felt like I moved the sand. It was sitting in my mind. If I went back after the round, looked that up and found out that it was a two-shot penalty, I would be DQ’d right now. So I am glad I brought it up right away. I know the rules of golf a little bit better now. There is a lot of silly stuff you can do in the bunker. You can chuck a club in the bunker, you can literally stand — you can use your golf club as a stand in the bunker. As long as it’s not right next to your ball.

“There’s a lot of things you can do. But unfortunately if it’s in the area affecting the lie and the swing of your shot, regardless of intent, it’s a two-shot penalty.”

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.