Sports

PGA candidate calls in own Q-school disqualification

A golfer’s honesty cost him dearly, and now Blayne Barber’s dream of making the PGA Tour will have to wait another year.

Barber reportedly called the PGA Tour last week informing it he signed an incorrect score card when he apparently advanced from the first stage of Q-school at a tournament on Oct. 27.

Barber took a one-shot penalty after he thought his club moved a leaf in a bunker on the 13th hole — even though his caddie never saw the club hit the leaf. However, the correct penalty to apply in the case should have been two shots, which he only realized after talking to a former Auburn teammate.

Rule 23-1 in the 2012 Complete Rules of Golf book states, “If the ball lies in a hazard, the player must not touch or move any loose impediment lying in or touching the same hazard.” The penalty during stroke play is a two-stroke penalty.

“I continued to pray about it and think about it, and I just did not have any peace about it,” Barber told Golfweek magazine. “I knew I needed to do the right thing. I knew it was going to be disqualification.”

Barber’s disqualification ended his chance at getting a 2013 Tour card. If he had properly given himself the two-stroke penalty, Barber still would have made the cut by five strokes. Instead, six golfers who finished tied for 19th move up to T-18 and now will move on.

Barber earned $13,000 in two starts on the Web.com Tour in 2012, and was a member of the United States’ Walker Cup team of amateurs in 2011.