Tom Kim and Brian Campbell Both Play the Wrong Ball in the Same Bunker

Two professional golfers, one bunker, and neither man hit his own ball. Tom Kim and Brian Campbell both played the wrong ball from the same greenside bunker on their final hole of the second round at the VidantaWorld Mexico Open on Friday, each took a two-stroke penalty, and each walked off with a double bogey. It is the kind of mistake that sounds impossible until you picture the scene: two balls in the same sand, two players looking down at their lies, and neither one checking the markings before swinging.

How did both players get it wrong?

Step by step, and every step matched. GOLF.com reports both men started the hole at five under for the round and nine under for the tournament, both hit the left side of the fairway with their tee shots, and both dropped their second shots into the right greenside bunker. From the sand, Kim hit Campbell’s ball, and Campbell hit Kim’s. The error was first reported by Golf Channel’s Damon Hack, and broadcast video showed Kim, Campbell and a rules official talking next to the bunker while the situation was sorted out.

The hole itself needs a footnote, because reports describe it two ways. It was the course’s par-4 ninth, but it was the last hole of Kim and Campbell’s round because they had started on the back nine, so some reports call it their 18th hole. Both descriptions are correct; they just count from different starting tees. What matters is the sequence: same bunker, wrong balls, penalties, double bogeys, and a long walk to the scorer’s tent wondering how it happened.

Why were they not disqualified?

Because the rule is a penalty, not an ejection, as long as the mistake is fixed. Under Rule 6.3c(1), as GOLF.com quotes it, a player who plays a wrong ball in stroke play gets the general penalty of two strokes and must correct the mistake by continuing play with the original ball, and the strokes made with the wrong ball do not count. Disqualification follows only if the player fails to correct the mistake before starting another hole, or before returning the scorecard on the final hole. Kim and Campbell both corrected it, replayed their bunker shots, and got up and down for double bogey, Golf Channel reports. That is the difference between a costly Friday and a ruined week: the rule gives you a way back, but it charges you two shots for needing it.

Golf Channel analyst Brendon de Jonge put the blame where the rule puts it, on both players. It is blame on both guys, he said on the broadcast, because in a bunker you are looking down at the lie and you have to figure out which golf ball is yours. It is really a mistake you cannot afford to make, he added, and the rest of the round proved him right: a mistake like this does not just cost two shots, it ruins the round, because it is the one you will be kicking yourself over all weekend.

What did it cost them?

Two shots each on the last hole, and a much worse story than the leaderboard shows. Both men finished the round at three under, 68, and entered the weekend at seven under, Golf Channel reports, four shots off the clubhouse lead shared by Matthieu Pavon, Adrien Dumont de Chassart and amateur Kihei Akina. Golfweek reports the cut fell at four under, so neither man was in danger of missing the weekend. But both had started the hole at nine under for the tournament, which means the double bogeys dropped them from a share of the chasing pack into the middle of it, and the difference between nine under and seven under on a Friday is the difference between thinking about winning and thinking about catching up.

The context makes it sting more for Campbell. He is the defending champion at this event, having won it when it was played in the spring, and this is his first start since the Wyndham Championship in early August. He has not finished better than a tie for 24th since his 2025 John Deere Classic win, Golf Channel reports, and he has slipped to 197th in the world rankings. He is also slated to get married next week. Kim, by contrast, is having the better year: his Genesis Scottish Open triumph this past summer was his fourth PGA Tour title, and he sits 30th in the world. A shared rules blunder does not care about either man’s form, which is part of why it travels so well.

Why does a bunker mistake travel further than a normal penalty?

Because it is a failure of the game’s honour system in miniature. Golf asks players to identify their own ball, call penalties on themselves, and protect the field, and most of the time the system works because the mistakes are invisible. A wrong ball in a bunker is visible, checkable, and entirely avoidable, which is why it becomes a talking point rather than a footnote. It also lands in a season already full of rules arguments, from Brooks Koepka’s account of a lie he says he saw improved and did not report to the begging-for-a-gimme row that defined the Internet Invitational. Koepka’s story was about a breach nobody reported; Kim and Campbell’s is about a breach nobody needed to report, because the officials were standing right there. The contrast is the point: golf’s rules only work when someone, player or official, is paying attention, and on Friday at Vidanta Vallarta, for one bunker shot each, nobody was.

It is also a reminder of how quickly a tournament can turn on something small. The youngest Korn Ferry graduate to earn a PGA Tour card made his news by doing everything right at the right time; Kim and Campbell made theirs by doing one small thing wrong at the same time. And the hole-in-one that won a BMW in Spain showed the other side of golf’s luck ledger, where one swing changes a week for the better. Friday’s swing changed a week for the worse, by two shots each, in a bunker both men would rather forget.

What happens next?

The weekend, with the story attached. Both players are at seven under and still in touch, and every bunker shot they face from here will be watched a little more closely, by the cameras and by each other. Any comment from Kim or Campbell about how it happened, and any further rules incident in the same tournament, is the next development to check. The rulebook has already had its say: two strokes each, mistake corrected, play on. The rest is up to two golfers who now share something no pair of playing partners wants to share, a wrong ball each, in the same bunker, on the same hole, on the same Friday.