‘Massive rookie error!’ Brutal rules mistake costs tour pro huge victory

Here’s your regular reminder to always – ALWAYS – read the local rules before you play in a tournament.

The latest motivation comes from Australian Anthony Quayle, was playing in the Victorian PGA Championship in his homeland when disaster struck.

Quayle, a Japan Tour regular who finished in a tie for 15th at the 150th Open two years ago, was back in his homeland for a four-week stretch of tournaments, the first three of which had preferred lies in play as wet weather played havoc with the PGA Tour of Australia schedule.

So when players were handed a piece of paper on the first tee of the Open course at Moonah Links, a few miles south of Melbourne, explaining where preferred lies were in play that day, Quayle made the critical decision not to read it.

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Fast forward to the 15th, and the 31-year-old asked his playing partner, Tyler McCumber, whether or not he could lift, clean and replace.

The American confirmed he could, before Quayle breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’ve been doing it all day,” he said.

But then he checked the note, and that’s where he found out the truth.

“Turns out on that document it only said it was preferred lie on the third hole in the blue painted area,” Quayle told the PGA of Australia. “I guess that sort of sat more in the fine print of the document.

“I had just assumed on this tour we play preferred lie a lot. I just didn’t think too much more of it. I’m kicking myself now.

“The fairways were decent. You could see how maybe we needed preferred lies because there were a lot of collection areas with divots. Our last three tournaments on tour have been preferred lie. The document I was handed is a little half-page document that is highlighted ‘preferred lie’ and highlighted scorecard length.

“It’s a massive rookie error on my part.”

Quayle called over tournament director and referee Heath McLeod to explain what happened.

“I didn’t feel comfortable hitting another shot without addressing it,” Quayle explained.

“I felt like I’d done something really wrong. As soon as I realized, I felt sick in the stomach, I thought I’d done something terribly wrong.”

McLeod told Quayle he would be penalised seven shots for four infractions – two for each of the three shots he hit from the fairway having replaced his ball, and a further shot for another near a green, because he replaced the ball in the same spot. McCumber was also penalised two shots.

Those nine penalty shots between the pair ultimately turned out to be costly. McCumber went on to finish second, one behind Corey Crawford, who took home the $250,000 first prize, while Quayle finished a further shot back in third.

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When asked how he managed to gather himself for such a strong finish, Quayle said: “After I had a bit of time to process what happened, I grew the opinion of, ‘Let’s treat this as a bit of a challenge and see what we can do.’ Making the cut with a seven-stroke penalty is going to be impressive.

“After I made the cut, now it’s [a case of] finishing as high as I possibly can because it’s going to be pretty impressive wherever I finish.

“I wanted the story to be as good as it can be going forward. It could be one that I remember for a long time.”

He’ll certainly remember to read the small print in future.

Alex Perry is the Associate Editor of bunkered. A journalist for more than 20 years, he has been a golf industry stalwart for the majority of his career and, in a five-year spell at ESPN, covered every sporting event you can think of. He completed his own Grand Slam at the 2023 Masters, having fallen in love with the sport at his hometown club of Okehampton and on the links of nearby Bude & North Cornwall.

Associate Editor