NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Garrick Higgo was assessed a two-stroke penalty Thursday morning at the PGA Championship when he was late for his 7:18 a.m. first-round tee time at Aronimink.
Cameras showed the 26-year-old South African walking onto the tee at 7:19 a.m. with his putter in hand; his card was already in his tea box and golf bag. The officer greeted him and brought bad news.
“You know you’re late to the tee?” This official said. “That’s two shots. Good luck.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Higgo shyly, as he walked over the tea.
Penalties for being late to the tee are rare, as players and caddies are well aware of their tee times and stakes for showing up late. But there are often close calls, as golfers like to maximize warm-up time and minimize time spent waiting on the tee.
“Higgo practiced putting on the green but was not in the designated starting position during his first time,” the PGA of America wrote in a release.
It was not immediately clear if there was a specific reason for Higgo’s drinking. Sometimes players arrive late because they think they are coming from No. 1 and coming from No. 10, or vice versa, but not here – Aronimink’s 1st and 10th holes share a tee box.
There are two putting greens just up and around the clubhouse from the first tee, a few minutes walk.
The PGA has designated the “first place” to use Rule 5.3a as the boundaries of its tee box, which is “defined by a rope, gallery posts, green bicycle fence and/or blue posts, green dots or blue lines.”
There isn’t much wiggle room when it comes to the lateness rule. The way this law is written, Higgo drank 7:18 am at 7:18:01. By the time it hit 7:19, he was already a minute late.
If there was good news, then he wasn’t there later on; if Higgo was more than five minutes late, he would be kicked out. Because he was less than five minutes late, he received a two-stroke penalty. (Then he laughed it’s early and he would receive a penalty of two strokes.)
There is an exception written in the law if, as the law states, “The Committee Determines That Special Circumstances Prevented A Player From Starting On Time”. But that was not considered to be the case here. The PGA Rules Committee distributed the relevant portion of Rule 5.3 as follows:
A player’s round begins when the player makes a stroke to start his first hole (see Rule 6.1a).
A player must start (and not before) his first turn:
-This means that the player must be ready to play at the starting time and the starting point set by the Committee.
-The first time set by the Committee is considered the exact time (for example, 9 am means 9:00:00 am, not at any time until 9:01 am).
Penalty for Violation of Rule 5.3a: Disqualification, with three exceptions (see exception to 1 below):
-Player Arrives at First Point, Ready to Play, No More Than Five Minutes Late: The player incurs the standard penalty applied to his first hole.
The penalty was served on Higgo’s first hole; he took four strokes and carded a double-bogey 6. To his credit, he got up from there, carding two birdies and six pars to finish his front nine in par despite the penalty.
Higgo finished his 2025 season on a high note, logging top-seven finishes in all four of his first PGA Tour seasons. But his 2026 is off to a great start; The lefty’s best is T40 through 12 tournaments. His career best result at a major tournament is a T47 at the 2022 Open.
Higgo is scheduled to depart at 12:43 pm on Friday.
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