Garrick Higgo has criticised the decision to be handed a two-shot penalty for being late to his tee time for the opening round of the PGA Championship.<\/p>\n
Higgo was due to tee off at 7.18am local time (12.18pm UK time) on Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club for the second men’s major of the year, partnering former major champion Shaun Micheel and PGA Tour player Michael Brennan.<\/p>\n
The South Africa was on the practice putting green but was not within the area defined as the starting point at his starting time, leaving Higgo penalised under Rule 5.3a of the rules of golf.<\/p>\n
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This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> Higgo arrived within five minutes of his scheduled time, meaning he had a two-shot penalty applied to the first hole and saw his two-putt par turn into a double-bogey six. Had he been over five minutes late, he would have faced disqualification.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old responded by posting four birdies and just one bogey over the rest of his round, with a 25-foot par at the last closing a one-under 69 and leaving him within two strokes of the early clubhouse leaders.<\/p>\n More to follow.. <\/p>\n Explained: Why ‘silly’ mistake saw Higgo handed penalty <\/p>\n Rule 5.3a states that a player’s round starts when the player makes a stroke to start their first hole, along with a player being ready to play at the starting time and starting point set by the committee.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> The PGA of America’s local rules and terms of the competition stated that the starting point for holes one and 10 is by the rope, gallery stakes, green bike fencing and\/or blue stakes, blue dots or blue lines, with Higgo away from that area at his official tee time.<\/p>\n Speaking about the incident, former Solheim Cup player Mel Reid – commentating for Sky Sports – said: “It’s a bit silly, really. You are in full control of it so I don’t really know anyone who has done it.”<\/p>\n Sky Sports’ Andrew Coltart added: “There was still someone to play, but if you’re name is announced then game over. Somebody had already teed off, you heard the tee shot, so that was clumsy.<\/p>\n “There isn’t an argument really if your playing partner has already teed off. You wouldn’t want to rush onto the tee one second before – goodness knows where you would hit it. You’ve got to get there in time, to calm down to think about your tee shot, to then hit it.<\/p>\n “It’s just bizarre that a professional golfer can do that.”<\/p>\n Higgo entered the week as world No 85 and having finished no higher than tied-40th on the PGA Tour this season. His last win came at the Corales Puntacana Championship in April 2025.<\/p>\n Who will win the PGA Championship? Watch throughout the week live on Sky Sports Golf. Get Sky Sports<\/a> or stream with no contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garrick Higgo has criticised the decision to be handed a two-shot penalty for being late to his tee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-670879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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