NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Garrick Higgo was assessed a two-stroke penalty on Thursday morning at the PGA Championship when he was late for his 7:18 a.m. first-round tee time at Aronimink.
Cameras showed the 26-year-old South African walking onto the tee at 7:19 a.m. holding his putter; his caddie was already on the tee box with his golf bag. An official greeted him and delivered the bad news.
“You know you’re late to the tee?” said the official. “That’s two shots. Good luck to you.”
“Yes, thank you,” Higgo said sheepishly, as he walked onto the tee.
Penalties for being late to the tee are relatively rare, as players and caddies are keenly aware of their tee times and the stakes 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 putting green but was not within the area defined as the starting point at his starting time,” the PGA of America wrote in a release.
It wasn’t immediately clear if there was a specific reason Higgo was late. Sometimes players are late to the tee because they think they’re going off No. 1 and are off 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 uphill and around the clubhouse from the first tee, a few minutes’ walk.
The PGA laid out its “starting point” for applying Rule 5.3a as essentially the boundaries of its tee box, “defined by the rope, gallery stakes, green bike fencing and/or blue stakes, blue dots or blue lines.”
There’s not much wiggle room when it comes to the late-to-the-tee rule. The way the rule is written, Higgo was late for his 7:18 a.m. tee time at 7:18:01. By the time 7:19 hit, he was already a minute late.
If there was good news, it’s that he wasn’t later; had Higgo 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. (Had he teed off early he also would have received a two-stroke penalty.)
There is an exception written into the rule if, as the rule states, “Committee Decides that Exceptional Circumstances Prevented Player from Starting on Time”. But that wasn’t deemed to be the case here. The PGA’s Rules Committee distributed the relevant portion of Rule 5.3 as follows:
A player’s round starts when the player makes a stroke to start their first hole (see Rule 6.1a).
The player must start at (and not before) their starting time:
-This means that the player must be ready to play at the starting time and starting point set by the Committee.
-A starting time set by the Committee is treated as an exact time (for example, 9 a.m. means 9:00:00 am, not any time until 9:01 am).
Penalty for Breach of Rule 5.3a: Disqualification, with three exceptions (see exception 1 below):
-Player Arrives at Starting Point, Ready to Play, No More Than Five Minutes Late: The player gets the general penalty applied to their first hole.
The penalty was applied to Higgo’s first hole; he took four strokes and carded double-bogey 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 heater, logging top-sevens in all four of his fall PGA Tour starts. But his 2026 has gotten off to a far rockier start; the lefty’s best is T40 through 12 tournaments. His best career result at a major championship is T47 at the 2022 Open.
Higgo is scheduled to tee off at 12:43 p.m. on Friday.
