A Wild And Wacky Local Qualifier

Garry Smits reports on Monday's US Open qualifier at Sawgrass. It included a DQ for a non-conforming wedge and one player qualifying in spite of a one-shot penalty for slow play.

There also was a controversy over the FSGA's pace-of-play policy, which requires groups to not only finish their rounds in a given time, but finish within 15 minutes of the group ahead of them on both nines.

Six players in two groups didn't make the deadline of four hours, 40 minutes to complete 18 holes; and were more than 15 minutes behind the group ahead of them. Included was Harman, whose 70 was changed to a 71 with the one-stroke penalty. He angrily berated tournament officials for not giving his group a warning during the round. He qualified anyway.

Under the FSGA policy, initiated two years ago, warnings are not issued during play. Stroke penalties can be assessed at the turn and when a group finishes, and can be waived at the discretion of the committee if players were held up by rulings or having to look for lost balls.

"They received the pace-of-play policy in a packet mailed to them before the tournament, got another copy on the first tee, and the policy also is posted on six holes on the course," Dudley said. "There's no excuse for them not knowing it. They don't need warnings from rules officials to know what the policy is. All they have to do is read the information they've been given."