Garrick Higgo hit with rare two-shot penalty at PGA Championship start
A one-minute delay cost Garrick Higgo two strokes at Aronimink, turning a routine opening par into a double bogey and wiping out the lead he could have shared.
Garrick Higgo learned how unforgiving golf’s timing rules can be before he even struck a shot. The PGA of America Rule Committee handed the South African a rare two-shot penalty for arriving one minute late to his 7:18 a.m. tee time at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, in the first round of the 108th PGA Championship.
Higgo was listed as arriving at 7:19 a.m. under Rule 5.3a, which treats the starting time as exact. A player who is no more than five minutes late receives the general penalty of two strokes; anything beyond that can bring disqualification. Higgo was paired with Michael Brennan and Shaun Micheel, and the ruling immediately changed the shape of his opening round, converting what would have been a par on the first hole into a double bogey.
The 27-year-old from Johannesburg, South Africa, did not let the penalty finish his round. He birdied Nos. 3 and 9 and was back to even par through the front nine, a small recovery after a start that could have unraveled a major-championship week. Higgo, who plays left-handed but is naturally right-handed, turned professional in 2019 after playing college golf at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
He arrived at the PGA Championship as a player with recent winning form, having captured the 2025 Corales Puntacana Championship for his second PGA Tour title. This was his fourth PGA Championship start, and his best finish before this week came last year, when he tied for 55th. Instead of opening with a chance to join the leaders, Higgo spent his morning trying to recover from a ruling that left no room for sympathy.
Higgo said, "my caddie was yelling at me to get to the tee," and also said he was "there on time, but late," underscoring the dispute over how the delay unfolded. However the clock was read, the result was immediate and costly. Golf has seen similar late-to-the-tee penalties before, including cases involving Mackenzie Hughes at the Genesis Scottish Open and Dustin Johnson at the 2011 Northern Trust Open. Those precedents show how rare it is for a major contender to be knocked off balance before hitting a single shot, but they also show the rule working exactly as written.
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