PGA Tour winner Garrick Higgo starts PGA Championship with two-shot penalty for late arrival to first tee

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Arriving at the first tee on time should be the easiest part of competing in the PGA Championship, but it turned out to be an impossible task for Garrick Higgo on Thursday morning.

The South African’s first-round tee time at Aronimink Golf Club was set for 7:18 a.m. local time, but he couldn’t manage to make it to the tee box when his starting time arrived on Thursday.

The PGA of America announced that Higgo was penalized two strokes for being late for his opening round tee time. He was on the property, but was on the putting green near the first tee, which is “not within the area defined as the starting point at his starting time.”

So, Higgo began his PGA Championship by hitting his third shot before even hitting a golf ball in the tournament. He ended up carding a double bogey six on the opening hole, but managed to erase the tough start by making the turn on Thursday at even par thanks to two birdies.

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The entire situation is mind-numbing. Higgo is a two-time winner on the PGA Tour and has been a professional golfer since 2019, yet he lost track of time on the putting green at a major championship and technically showed up late for his tee time. Truly preposterous stuff.

The most famous tee time disaster in recent memory involves Rory McIlroy.

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During the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah Country Club, McIlroy arrived on property just 12 minutes before his match against Keegan Bradley was set to begin.

The six-time major champion had forgotten that Medinah was located in the central time zone, so when he saw his 12:25 p.m. ET start time, he forgot to subtract an hour to account for the actual time zone.

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It all worked out quite all right for McIlroy that Sunday. Not only did he win his match against Bradley, but his European team also won the biennial event 14.5-13.5.

Plus, Erica Stoll, a PGA of America employee at the time, arranged the police escort to get McIlroy to the course ahead of his match. Five years later, the two were married at Ashford Castle in Ireland.

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