Jose Luis Ballester admitted to urinating into Rae’s Creek during the opening round of the Masters at Augusta.
The Spanish amateur, who played alongside world No 1 Scottie Scheffler on Thursday, took a break as he played the 13th hole, with some spectators noticing what he was doing as he turned his back to the grandstand and relieved himself into the stream after forgetting that there were toilets available on the course.
The 21-year-old is the US Amateur champion and is playing at the Masters for the first time, where he carded an opening round of four-over-par. After his round, he admitted that he urinated into Rae’s Creek to reporters, but said he would “do it again” if he had to.
“I completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee box,” he said. “And then I’m like, I really need to pee.
“I didn’t really know where to go, and since JT [Justin Thomas] had an issue on the green, I’m like, I’m just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see me that much, and then they clapped for me. Probably one of the claps that I really got today real loud, so that was kind of funny.”
The Augusta National members are likely to be unimpressed by Ballester’s bizarre admission, however, but whether they take action remains to be seen.
“They saw me. They saw me,” he said. “It was not embarrassing at all for me. If I had to do it again, I would do it again.”
