“For them, this is a blip on the radar of the trouble the tour is facing."

I'm not sure I agree with UCLA Coach Carrie Forsyth's assessment of where the Stephanie Kono saga lands on the LPGA radar, as their decision to not rectify their own mistake is just the kind of credibility killer that taints a leadership group for years to come.

Kono qualified for the tour and as Beth Ann Baldry's story explained yesterday, would be faced with a decision she had not planned on: take an LPGA Tour card or pass, even though she entered just hoping to secure Futures Tour status after school. She took the card and her coach blasted the LPGA Tour, rightly so. Baldry follows up:

Forsyth had made peace with the fact that Kono might not be on her roster next spring before Kono even left L.A. But when she found out that her star senior didn’t even need to be in Daytona Beach to get the Futures Tour status she desired, an angry Forsyth took issue with the tour.

“The lack of desire to try to do anything to rectify the situation was very disappointing,” said Forsyth, who called the tour twice to make sure her two seniors – Kono and Brianna Do, who missed the 72-hole cut – needed to go to all three stages to ensure a full schedule on the Futures Tour. Turns out she received bad information. Both players could’ve stopped after two stages.

Kono never wanted to leave UCLA early, but now at the final stage, with a tour card dangling in front of her face, she couldn’t say no.

The logical thing for the tour to do was offer Kono a one-time-only deferment, allowing her to accept membership after college graduation. A simple apology wasn’t enough.

Reporting from the Coach's convention in Las Vegas, Ryan Herrington praises the grace with which UCLA is handing the unexpected loss of a star player.

I give a lot of credit to Forsyth and the rest of the Bruins' family for being so supportive to Kono. Of course, they should be. This is an amazing accomplishment for the 22-year-old from Honolulu, something she hopefully will celebrate grandly down the road. Yet at the same time, it has huge ramifications for UCLA, ones that aren't necessarily in the program's best interest. With that comes the potential to be upset by the situation. UCLA is taking the high road, and should be proud of that.