Good Karma or Pure Stupidity?
Qualifying for the PGA tour can be a very rigorous, difficult, and long process that many try achieve and only a few actually do. 43 year old Tour journeyman JP Hayes was playing in the a second-stage qualifier at Deerwood Country Club in Kingwood, Texas last week when he disqualified himself from the tournament which means, he will not get his Tour Card this year.
JP realized that he had used a different type of ball in the middle of his round which calls for a 2 stroke penalty. He informed the rules judge and his round of 72 was increased to a 74. Since golf does not have referees or umpires, the players are supposed to police them selves. At the end of the day, a 2 stroke penalty was not a huge deal and a chance to still earn his tour card was still achievable.
The next day, JP went out and shot a 71 and was sitting in good position to earn his Tour Card. Later that day, when JP got back to his hotel room, he noticed another ball that made him realize that the ball he had used was a “prototype” that he was testing for Titleist. He thought the ball might not be on the USGA’s list of conforming balls and contacted a Tour rules official to check. The results came back as he thought and he had to disqualify himself leading to him not qualifying for his Tour Card.
“I hesitate to say this is a good thing,” Hayes said. “It was either cheat or don’t cheat, and I don’t cheat. I would hate for people to look at this and see me come across as a hero. I just did what I was supposed to.”
If JP would have kept his mouth shut, he would have had a good chance of earning his Tour Card and earning a lot of money this year.
“This isn’t the end of the world,” Hayes said. “I’m still a golfer. And to be honest, I don’t want to say I’m burned out, but spending more time at home with my family at this stage of my life isn’t the worst thing to happen to me.”
In this day and age when there seems to be “cheating” controversies in every major sport, it’s refreshing to hear a good story out of the world of professional sports.