Golfer disqualified… after running out of balls!

Spare a thought for French pro Clément Berardo. 

The 32-year-old today suffered the ignominy that every golfer lives in mortal fear of – running out of balls.

Playing in the opening round of the Andalucia-Costa del Sol Match Play 9 on the Challenge Tour, Berardo ran out of ammo after losing a ball on the 16th hole at the Valle Romano course in Spain.

As a result, he was disqualified from the tournament.

Yep. Dee-kew’d.

• Reality bites for US Open golfer

• Brooks Koepka says US Open loss “doesn’t sting”

It’s not clear how many balls Berardo had in his bag to begin with but a quick look at his scorecard paints a sorry picture of his day.

After opening with a quadruple-bogey nine on the first, he had further bogeys on the sixth and eighth holes, reaching the turn in 41. He subsequently doubled the tenth and dropped yet more shots on the 14th and 15th holes before running out of balls on the par-5 16th.

• ‘Media is a male eco-system,’ says LET boss

• US star commits to Scottish Open

Famously, Tiger Woods came within a ball of suffering the same fate during the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach, although he didn’t know it at the time. It was only sometime later that his then caddie Steve Williams revealed how close Woods had come to the ultimate embarrassment. 

He didn’t, though. Instead, he went on to win by a record 15 shots.