David Puig did not play his best golf during the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic. The 24-year-old from Spain entered Sunday in second place, four shots behind playing partner and eventual winner Patrick Reed.
Three bogeys in a five-hole stretch on the back nine at Emirates Golf Club put him well off the lead and it was clear that he would not capture his second DP World Tour title, after winning the Australian PGA back in November.
Puig made par on the last hole to shoot what he thought was a one-over 73, which landed him in a tie for third place with Julien Guerrier. England’s Andy Sullivan was in second place.
First birdie of the day for David Puig and he cuts the gap to the leader Patrick Reed to three 🇪🇸#HeroDubaiDesertClassic | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/3Rs1euKJlH
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) January 25, 2026
Moments later, Puig was slapped with a two-stroke penalty on the last hole for grounding his club in the greenside bunker on his third shot so his final score was a 75. He was not aware of what he did, but when shown a replay of the shot he agreed it was a violation and was assessed the penalty because he touched the white sand while addressing the ball, violating rule 12.2b.
Instead of a third-place tie that would have given him $508,500, he tied for seventh place with Ricardo Gouveia and Marcus Armitage, earning $234,000. Yes, that’s a difference of nearly $275,000. That doesn’t even include all the wasted world ranking points he would’ve received, as he’s on Sergio Garcia’s FireBalls LIV squad, which is not eligible to earn points.
Puig is ranked 99th in the world and could’ve certainly moved closer to the top-50 mark which would help him get into all four major championships this year.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com