Two golfers ended up playing in a PGA Tour event after being mistakenly allowed to play in the tournament's qualifying round.
The PGA Tour made an outrageous mistake that could actually increase viewership for this weekend's inaugural Black Desert Championship.
Tour events typically have a qualifying round known as the Monday Qualifying Tournament. In this round, players who have not yet qualified for the event will participate in one round of competition for a limited number of spots. However, there are some merits to that as well.
If a golfer is a member of the PGA, PGA Tour Champions (a tour for ages 50 and older), or the Korn Ferry Tour (a development tour), he or she is exempt from Monday's qualifying event. Non-exempt players must participate in pre-qualifying events to qualify for Monday's qualifiers.
It's a complicated process, but I don't seem to have had any problems with it so far.
“It was a clerical error on the part of the tournament director.”
How did it happen?
Exit Monday Q It turns out that four players who were not exempt skipped the pre-qualification event and were able to successfully register for Monday's qualifier for the Black Desert Championship. Golfers RJ Mahnke, Chris Korte, John Sands and Riley Lewis were all incorrectly listed in Monday's qualifying field.
“It was an administrative error by the tournament director,” the Utah PGA told the magazine. “Monday was our first PGA Tour and he just made a mistake. He's played hundreds of tournaments with no problems. He just missed this one.”
Some players were furious to learn that other golfers could skip a total of three qualifiers for an upcoming tournament, and at least one contacted the tour.
Korte, who skipped the qualifying round, also called the tour to confirm the exemption was accurate. He told Monday Q that even though he signed up for the qualifying round, his portion was refunded and he remained exempt, allowing him to participate in Monday's qualifying round.
This mass disruption put the PGA Tour in a difficult position, but after consultation with its legal team, the organization ultimately decided to refund the entry fees of the four players and exclude them from Monday's qualifying. . Three players took it to their jaws, and a fourth allegedly called the PGA Tour to request a refund for his travel expenses.
As a result, the PGA reversed course and decided to keep golfers playing in qualifying.
Korte said he received calls within 30 minutes about being removed from qualifying and being reinstated.
what happened to them?
Monday's qualifying session was held as scheduled with four golfers marked with an asterisk. Amazingly, Korte and Sand both clocked 64 seconds, finishing at -8 and earning a spot in the Black Desert Championship. According to golf dot comtwo other golfers who qualified in the traditional sense also advanced to the big tournament.
When the tournament begins on Thursday, not only will the spotlight be on two down-on-their-luck golfers, but there will now be an embedded rivalry between the traditional qualifiers and the chance qualifiers. Exists.
Corte is scheduled to tee off at 11:19 a.m. ET Thursday, while Sand will tee off at 11:35 a.m. ET.
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