The round of 16 on Thursday at the US Amateur saw one of the most brutal eliminations in the history of the century-old event, as the Argentine amateur Segundo Oliva Pinto was eliminated on the 18th hole due to an unexplained error by his caddy.
On the 18th hole, Oliva Pinto hit a shot into a bunker while everything was square with the American Tyler Strafaci. He never got another shot. Instead, his caddy caused him to forget the hole by jumping into the bunker and touching the sand, apparently to test the texture.
That broke rule 12.2 in the USGA rulebook, which explicitly forbids touching the sand in a bunker before taking a stroke.
American amateur match ends with caddy error
That mistake cost Oliva Pinto the match and a chance to win golf’s most prestigious amateur title, as well as an invitation to three of the next four majors. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but Oliva Pinto has done her best to show that there are no hard feelings.
Second Oliva Pinto forgets caddy
Hours after elimination, Oliva Pinto posted a photo of himself and the caddy assigned to him at the event on his Instagram story. The golfer called the caddy a ‘good man’ and ‘great friend’, and said such an incident could happen to anyone.
Screengrab of Segundo Oliva Pinto’s Instagram story
Oliva Pinto also apologizes for the situation in another post on his story.
“I want to apologize to all my friends and followers,” Oliva Pinto wrote. “This situation was out of my control and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.”
In a subsequent interview with ESPN on Friday, Oliva Pinto said he had called the caddy to discuss the matter:
“He was sitting in tears, brainstorming about what happened,” Pinto told ESPN on Friday. “I posted a photo on my Instagram that said it was not his fault. It could happen to anyone. He is not used to playing on the big stage in leagues, so he did not know the rules.”
Oliva Pinto said he was most concerned with the huge exposure the incident received on social media:
“I told him that if I could forgive him, anyone could forgive him, because I felt bad about the social burden on him with everyone who posted on Twitter and Instagram,” Pinto said.
“My thought was, ‘I want to leave this place like a man,’ and I think I did,” Pinto said. “There’s always something positive about the negative.”
That’s all ridiculous enough of Oliva Pinto, who also told ESPN that he hopes to go into a one-hole rematch at a later date against Strafaci.
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