Anthony Kim Alters Driver, Gets DQ'ed at HSBC Champions

On Thursday, during the opening round of the HSBC Champions in Shangai, China, I noted that American Anthony Kim was in the field even though he had recently fallen off a horse, spraining his right ankle and bruising his jaw in the process. That he still managed to limp to the first tee box was a testament to his ... well, something.

Whatever, Kim won't have to concern himself with limping through four days of tournament golf; he's been disqualified for using an altered driver.

"I wasn't angry or anything, just walking down the fairway," Kim said. "The toe hit the sprinkler, hit the top of the sprinkler, and I looked at it and it looked a little bit different. But I wasn't sure and I put it in my bag."

At the eighth, he hit his first drive only 150 yards, and out of bounds. He then hit a second provisional shot - also poorly. He took a triple-bogey 8 on the hole and played two more before he found a rules official, who told him he must disqualify himself for playing with an altered club.

That's right, it's not like Kim was trying to cork his driver in an effort get a few more yards out of it, he unintentionally modified the club when he hit it with a sprinkler. And not only did it not help him hit the ball farther or straighter, it suddenly transformed him into a 30-handicap hacker.

I rail on the archaic rules of golf at least once a year, and this seems like as good a time as any to dust off the old soapbox. I understand how altering a club might be to a golfer's advantage -- like, say, carrying u-grooved wedges or an 800 cc driver -- but when you're cracking drives 150 yards off the tee and O.B., I think it's safe to assume that the alterations did more harm than good.

In Kim's case, shouldn't the "8" he had to write on his scorecard be punishment enough? Does he also have to be DQ'ed? Apparently, yes. Yes, he does.