Disqualifications are common at the top levels of professional golf. The causes range from poor accounting onwards result sheets for players who play unintentionally non-conforming equipmentbut rarely are professionals shown the door to flat tricks.
This is what makes the case of 25-year-old Swiss professional Cedric Gugler so remarkable.
In June, Gugler, who plays in the HotelPlanner tournament – the feeder circuit for DP World Tour — was penalized after the first round of an event in the Czech Republic for “playing his ball from the wrong place on the putting surfaces on several occasions,” according to a statement released by the European Tour Group this week.
At the time, the disqualification went without much fanfare, apparently because the cause of the DQ was not made public. That changed Friday when the Tour announced that an Independent Disciplinary Panel had convened on Nov. 3 to evaluate Gugler’s actions and determined that he had “behaved in a manner that fell below the standards of conduct and ethical behavior expected of members of the Tour.”
The jury determined that the manner in which Gugler illegally marked his balls en route to his opening 75 at the Raiffeisenbank Golf Challenge was a “reckless violation of the Rules of Golf.”
Gugler will pay a high price for his transgression. The panel has suspended him for the first 10 HotelPlanner Tour events of the 2026 season, starting with the SDC Open in South Africa on January 29. More costly still will be the damage this decision will cause to Gugler’s reputation.
Gugler made 18 starts on the HotelPlanner Tour in 2025 and finished 166th in the points race during the tournament season. Heading into the event in the Czech Republic, he had missed seven cuts in 10 starts and had less than $4,000 in winnings.
Gugler has played sparingly on the DP World Tour, but he finished 4th as an invited sponsor at the 2024 Omega European Masters in his home country, which he called “the pinnacle of my career”.
“I love playing in front of big crowds on the big stage and it makes me stronger as a golfer,” Gugler said. “It was so special to play on the DP World Tour and this is where I feel I belong in the future. My goal is to get there as soon as possible.”
Below is the full statement from the European Tour Group:
The European Tour Group announced today that Cedric Gugler has been sanctioned for breaching the Code of Conduct on a HotelPlanner Tour.
An Independent Disciplinary Panel, which convened on November 3, 2025, found that Gugler had conducted himself in a manner that fell below the standards of conduct and ethical behavior expected of Tour members during the first round of the Raiffeisenbank Golf Challenge at Kaskada Golf Resort in the Czech Republic on June 12, 2025.
He was disqualified from the tournament after playing his ball from the wrong place on the putting surfaces on several occasions.
The Independent Disciplinary Panel – comprising Philip Evans KC, sports administrator Ian Larsen and Legends Tour member Markus Brier – ruled that Gugler’s conduct was a serious breach of the Tour’s Code of Conduct due to a reckless breach of the Rules of Golf.
Due to the serious breach, he has been suspended for the first 10 HotelPlanner Tour events of the season, starting on January 29, 2026, the day of the first tournament of the 2026 season, the SDC Open in South Africa.
He will be allowed to return after the first ten events have been completed, a date to be determined after the HotelPlanner 2026 tour schedule is finalized and announced.
