Cheating row Jon hails Lee

® JON RAHM says he is grateful for the ‘help’ he got from Lee Westwood – who questioned him in a rules row.

The Spaniard found himself at the centre of a cheat storm for the second tournament in a row.

Earlier this month Rahm was cleared of replacing a marked ball incorrectly at the Irish Open, which he won by six shots.

And on the 17th hole on Thursday he courted controversy by moving a branch before he played his shot.

Playing partner Westwood (below) queried if the decision to bend back an attached branch improved his stance or lie.

A rules official imposed a two-shot penalty – later rescinded as there was no footage of the incident – and Rahm claimed that moving the branch did not help him.

Yesterday Rahm tumbled down the leaderboard with a four-over par round of 74, but denied the earlier row had affected him.

He said: “It didn’t affect me today. I didn’t play bad because of what happened yesterday, I played bad like everybody else because of the wind.

“I’m an honest player. We all respect the things that golf teaches you and we all love golf so none of us here try to cheat to save strokes.

“It’s not the way I was raised, it’s not the way Spanish players play.

“I wouldn’t gain anything from that aside from a bad image.”

Westwood spoke after his second round yesterday. Giving his version of the incident, he said: “I just saw him moving it around to about three o’clock from where I was stood and I could see it was attached.

“So I said, ‘That’s attached’. That’s all I saw and I’m not going to comment on anything else.”

Rahm and Westwood cleared the air yesterday and the Spaniard didn’t detect any lingering problem.

He added: “We moved on. I told Lee there’s no hard feelings.

“He was actually trying to help me out, honestly. He was trying to avoid me getting in trouble if someone saw it on TV.

“I think he did it with the best intentions possible.’’