NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Garrick Higgo was assessed a two-stroke penalty Thursday morning at the PGA Championship when he was late for a 7:18 a.m. tee time in the first round of play at Aronimink.
Cameras showed the 26-year-old South African walking onto the tee at 7.19am, holding his ball; his case was already in the golf bag case. An official greeted him and gave him the bad news.
“You know you’re late for the tee?” said the official. “That’s two shots. Good luck.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Higgo said sheepishly as he walked over to the blouse.
Late set penalties are relatively rare, as players and golfers are very aware of their tee times and the risk of 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 was on the practice green but was not within the designated teeing area at his tee time,” the PGA of America wrote in a release.
It was not immediately clear if there was a specific reason Higgo was late. Sometimes players are late on the tee because they think they’re going to tee off on No. 1 and are on No. 10, or vice versa, but not here—Aronimink’s 1st and 10th holes share a tee box.
There are two practice putting greens just up and around the clubhouse from the first roof, a few minutes’ walk away.
The PGA defined its “starting point” for the application of Rule 5.3a as essentially the boundaries of its box, “defined by the rope, gallery posts, green bicycle fence and/or blue posts, blue dots or blue lines.”
There isn’t much wiggle room when it comes to the peak lag rule. The way the rule is written, Higgo was late for 7:18am at 7:18:01. At 7:19, he was already a minute late.
If there was any good news, it’s that he wasn’t later; If Higgo had arrived more than five minutes late, he would have been disqualified. Because he arrived less than five minutes late, he received a two-stroke penalty. (As if he had left EARLY he would also have received a two-stroke penalty.)
There is an exception written into the rule if, as the rule states, “The Committee determines that exceptional circumstances prevented the player from starting in time.” But here it was not thought to be so. 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).
The player must start at (and not before) his start time:
-This means that the player must be ready to play at the starting time and starting point set by the Committee.
-The start time set by the Committee is treated as an exact time (for example, 9am means 9:00am, not anytime before 9:01am).
Penalty for breach of rule 5.3a: Disqualification, with three exceptions (see exception 1 below):
-Player arrives at the starting point, ready to play, no more than five minutes late: The player receives the total penalty applied to his first hole.
The penalty was applied on Higgo’s first hole; he went four shots and carded a 6. To his credit, he rallied from there, carding two birdies and six pars to finish his front nine at even par despite the penalty.
Higgo finished his 2025 season on a hot note, recording top-seven finishes in all four of his fall PGA Tour starts. But his year 2026 is off to a much more difficult start; The lefty’s best is T40 through 12 tournaments. His career best at a major is T47 at the 2022 Open.
Higgo is scheduled to launch at 12:43 PM on Friday.
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