After shooting an incredible 7-under 64 on the first round of the Wells Fargo Championship, Xander Schauffele sits at the top of the leaderboard. There was one moment though where he found himself in the center of a major controversy.

Schauffele started the day while playing the back nine first. With five birdies in the first seven holes, he went to fire a score of nine-under 32. In the next nine holes, he once again seemed in control until he arrived at the par-4 8th hole.

The Olympic gold medalist ended up blasting his shot which saw his ball end up in between a cluster of tress and bushes in a penalty area. Schauffele’s ball was found to be near the property fence line.

Fortunately, he received a free relief. This was because one of the PGA Tour’s ShotLink towers was in his line to the green. As this falls under the category of a Temporary Immovable Object, he thus a received free relief as long as he took his shot from the penalty area.

Schauffele went on to register his first and only bogey of the day as he shoot a 5 on this hole. After the round he opened up about this incident and said that he did bring in the rules official and explained them that there was only one shot he could hit.

Yeah, I hit it in the trees. My ball was probably like a foot, two feet from the fence… If I went towards the green, the fence kind of worked this way so I had what I could hit, a 4-iron or something low and just kind of run it through. If it gets stuck, I’ll just kind of hit my next one out. But I brought the rules official in there with me because I was like, you’ve got to be OK with this because this is literally the only shot I can hit.

Xander Schauffele said as per Golfweek.

This decision though has left the fans fuming. Several users on social media have started debating this rules and called out the rules of the PGA Tour.

The fans on social media are not happy with the free relief decision given to Xander Schauffele. On X, several fans disputed this decision by the officials.

Usually players receive a two-stroke penalty for a bad drop. Rory McIlroy was seen getting this penalty earlier this season when he took his drop from a different location at the AT&T Pebble Beach. The fans argued why Schauffele was not fined with this. One fan on X went on to label this verdict as “absolute nonsense“.

Check out that and some top reactions regarding this below:

While the fans are unhappy with the decision, there wasn’t much that Schauffele could have done in this situation. The 30-year-old will enter Round 2 on Friday with a three-shot lead over the others and look to build upon this as he aims for his first victory this season.