NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Garrick Higgo, a 27-year-old South African golfer with long, dirty blonde hair he sometimes keeps in a man bun, showed up at the first tee Thursday at 7:18 a.m., he insists. His tee time for the first round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink was 7:18 a.m.
Had it become 7:18 and some seconds? Sure. Less than 30 seconds, he claims. It certainly hadn’t turned to 7:19.
The exact timing remains unclear — a PGA of America official told The Athletic that it did not have Higgo’s exact arrival time. ESPN recorded it to be 7:19, for what that is worth.
No matter. PGA of America Rule 5.3a states: “A starting time set by the Committee is treated as an exact time (for example, 9 am means 9:00:00 am, not any time until 9:01 am).”
So as Higgo ran up to the first tee, putter in hand and his caddie and everyone else waiting for him, the announcer handed Higgo his scorecard and informed him he was given a two-stroke penalty.
It only got sillier from there.
A golfer who’s never finished better than tied for 47th in a major championship — who’s missed four of his last six major cuts — played 18 of the best holes in the tournament. He hit just 67 shots, which would have been good enough for the first round co-lead if not for the two-shot penalty dropping him to 1 under par. Higgo has won two lower-tier PGA Tour events. He’s won three times in Europe. But on the day he made his worst blunder, he played arguably the best round of his life.
Then, he made his case.
“I was obviously there on time, but late,” he said.
Oh, it got better. He spent roughly 20 minutes after his round making his case to the PGA of America, claiming he was there at his assigned tee time. To his recollection, he stood on the putting green waiting for his round to start. “If you know me, then you know I am very casual and laid back,” he said. “But — I don’t know. I don’t want to be there 10 minutes early. I know that five minutes is fine. I thought I had time. I was obviously too casual.” He then heard his caddie, Austin Gaugert, yelling at him to get to the tee.
He was slated to hit last. His playing partners, Shaun Micheel and Michael Brennan, had yet to tee off. Then again, Higgo conceded, “Obviously (the starter) was dealing with finding me, so he probably would have announced Shaun on time.” He then claimed Micheel and Brennan argued Higgo’s case that he shouldn’t be penalized, to no avail.
He then proceeded to score four birdies and just one bogey on a challenging day. On the brutal 241-yard par-3 17th, he hit it to 5 feet for another birdie.
As he went inside, though, his focus was on his ruling. Was he making his case?
“I was just trying to get evidence,” he said.
Everybody wanted him after his round concluded, and he finally signed his scorecard. He spoke to ESPN. He spoke to Sky. Radio stations, too.
By the time he made it to a full-scale news conference, he was asked if he knew he was late.
“No, I wouldn’t have been late if I knew I was running late,” Higgo said.
Everything, he believed, was on schedule. He was up before the crack of dawn. He was in with his physiotherapist by 5:15 a.m. In the gym by 5:30. On the putting green by 6, and on the range by 6:30. He doesn’t know when he left the range. “There’s probably video of that,” he said.
“If anything, I could have added maybe five minutes for the walk from the range to the tee.”
He practiced at the closest putting green to the first and 10th tees, but it was not close enough. The rule states the starting point is defined as: “The rope, gallery stakes, green bike fencing and/or blue stakes, blue dots or blue lines.”
So Higgo, unaware of the consequences of the decision before him, just calmly tossed another ball on the practice green and hit one more putt. There’s a world where that costs him the PGA Championship.
“I’m already in the clouds a little bit as it is, so it is what it is,” he said. “I don’t know what else to do.”
