A bizarre situation played out last week at the first Monday Q of the year on the Americas Tour. It involved a player being disqualified, allowed to keep playing, and then somehow posting the best score of the day.<\/p>\n
Andrew Morris was on the third hole of the PGA Tour Americas Brazil Open Monday qualifier when the other players in his group\u2014Fletch Wundelich and Will Anderson\u2014noticed silver dots on his clubface.<\/p>\n
They were launch monitor stickers.<\/p>\n
Morris hadn\u2019t removed them before the round. The stickers don\u2019t provide any advantage, but under the rules, they\u2019re not allowed in competition. The group knew what that meant immediately: disqualification. A PGA Tour Americas rules official confirmed it when he met the group a few holes later.<\/p>\n
The group felt for him. This wasn\u2019t someone trying to gain an edge\u2014it was likely just inexperience.<\/p>\n
Morris, who was fifth alternate for that week\u2019s event, understood he was DQ\u2019d. But he asked if he could continue playing anyway, essentially turning the rest of the round into a practice round after traveling all the way to Brazil.<\/p>\n
According to Wundelich, the rules official initially said no, then reconsidered and allowed Morris to continue. He was still officially disqualified, but he could finish the round unofficially.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where things started to get strange.<\/p>\n
Because Morris didn\u2019t just continue\u2014he competed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was grinding the whole day,\u201d Wundelich said.<\/p>\n
There was no reason to be locked in. No reason to take extra time over shots. No reason to bear down on six-footers like they mattered.<\/p>\n
But he did.<\/p>\n
Wundelich said he stopped keeping Morris\u2019 score once the DQ became official. It didn\u2019t matter anymore. Morris kept playing well\u2014which could have been a personal victory\u2014but it shouldn\u2019t have mattered to the tournament.<\/p>\n
When the round ended, his unofficial score was 7-under par\u2014the best score of the day.<\/p>\n
Then it got even weirder.<\/p>\n
Morris walked into scoring with the group, despite having no official reason to turn in a card. He asked Wundelich to sign it, even though Wundelich hadn\u2019t kept his scores past the third hole. Morris had filled in the rest himself.<\/p>\n
Wundelich had shot even par. He just wanted to leave. But the whole thing felt off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t really sure what to think,\u201d Wundelich said. \u201cI mean, it felt wrong the whole time playing because he was no longer in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morris told him he \u201cshould already be DQ\u2019d in the system.\u201d Another official had confirmed the disqualification earlier, so Wundelich signed it.<\/p>\n
Morris then turned in the card. He told me that while the group openly discussed the DQ in the scoring tent, he didn\u2019t specifically tell the official he was disqualified when he handed in the card. Complicating things further, the official didn\u2019t speak much English.<\/p>\n
There wasn\u2019t a follow-up question.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just weird,\u201d Wundelich said.<\/p>\n
I spoke with Morris, who recently turned pro and has limited experience. He confirmed the story. He said after the round he hung around the putting green telling players he shot 7-under but had been disqualified. It was his best score since turning pro, and he wanted it posted so his sponsors could see.<\/p>\n
Though two players told me he also said, \u201cit\u2019s in the Tour\u2019s hands now.\u201d Morris said he researched the rule itself for two hours after the round.<\/p>\n
He texted his roommate right after the round with the score and again noted he had been DQ\u2019d. He did the same with his girlfriend.<\/p>\n
But when he saw his name on the leaderboard\u2026 he didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n
Morris said multiple times in our interview that he assumed the DQ was \u201cin the system\u201d and would be corrected.<\/p>\n
Wundelich wasn\u2019t sure what to do. He texted the rules official and left.<\/p>\n
An hour or so passed.<\/p>\n
Andrew Morris was still at the top of the leaderboard.<\/p>\n
Eventually, the rules official who had disqualified Morris called Wundelich to confirm it was the same player. It was.<\/p>\n
By then, it was too late.<\/p>\n
A five-player playoff had already teed off\u2014under the assumption there was only one spot available.<\/p>\n
There were actually two.<\/p>\n
I spoke with players in the playoff, and fortunately, they said no situation arose where the extra spot would have changed a decision. Still, it added another layer to an already bizarre day.<\/p>\n
The playoff finished the next morning, with three players ultimately playing for two spots.<\/p>\n
And if the story needed one final twist\u2026<\/p>\n
The next day, Morris changed his Instagram name to Andrew \u201cstickers\u201d Morris.<\/p>\n
He changed it back a few hours later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bizarre situation played out last week at the first Monday Q of the year on the Americas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-543109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}