Open de France: Marcel Siem disqualifies himself after preferred lies mix up

Marcel Siem disqualified himself from the Amundi Open de France in rules mix up after incurring 10 penalty strokes for incorrectly thinking preferred lies were in place 

There’s been some strange and costly rule infringements over the past few days. First, Lee Ann Walker was assessed 58 (!) penalty strokes at the Senior LPGA Championship for having her caddie line her up on the putting green illegally (Rule 10.2b), and now Marcel Siem has disqualified himself from the Amundi Open de France for a mix up of his own. 

Siem was incorrectly convinced that preferred lies were in place during the first round of the Open de France at Le Golf National, and the German player took the opportunity to lift, clean and replace his ball on five separate occasions in adherance with this.

However, he was soon notified by officials that preferred lies were not in place, and as a consequence was told he would incur 10 penalty strokes (two per infringement) for playing the ball from the wrong place. 

The 39-year-old decided it was ‘too much’ to continue, therefore disqualifying himself. He was one-over through through nine holes at the time. 

“I played the ball from the wrong place five times and conceded 10 penalty strokes,” Siem explained on his Facebook page. “That was a little too much for me and I disqualified myself. I thought I owed you the explanation.”

Siem, a three-time European Tour winner who reached as high as 48th in the World, has missed five of his last seven cuts on Tour, and hasn’t had a top 10 since 2017. After this latest set-back, the World No. 797 says he is now looking ahead to Qualifying School to regain his Tour card.

“Now I’ll be preparing for the Qualifying School in November to get the full tour ticket back so I can finally go forward again,” he continued. “I promise I’ll be back.”