Disqualifications are common in the upper rungs of professional golf. The causes range from sloppy accounting on scorecards to players unwittingly gaming non-conforming equipment, but rarely are pros shown the door for flat-out cheating.
That’s what makes the case of 25-year-old Swiss pro Cedric Gugler so remarkable.
In June, Gugler, who plays on the HotelPlanner Tour — the feeder circuit for the DP World Tour — was DQ’ed after the first round of an event in the Czech Republic for “playing his ball from the wrong place on putting surfaces on multiple occasions,” according to a statement issued by the European Tour Group this week.
At the time, the disqualification passed without much fanfare, presumably because the cause of the DQ was not publicized. That changed Friday when the Tour announced that an Independent Disciplinary Panel had convened on Nov. 3 to assess Gugler’s actions and ruled that he had “conducted himself in a manner that fell below the standards of behaviour and ethical conduct expected of Tour members.”
The panel 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 infringement of the Rules of Golf.”
Gugler will pay a steep price for his transgression. The panel has suspended him for the first 10 HotelPlanner Tour events of the 2026 season, beginning with the SDC Open in South Africa on Jan. 29. More costly still will be the damage this ruling will inflict on Gugler’s reputation.
Gugler made 18 starts on the HotelPlanner Tour in 2025 and finished 166th in the tour’s season-long points race. In the lead-up to the Czech Republic event, he had missed seven cuts in 10 starts and banked less than $4,000 in earnings.
Gugler has played sparingly on the DP World Tour, but he did finish 4th as a sponsor invite at the 2024 Omega European Masters in his homeland, which he called “the highlight 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 that’s where I feel I belong in the future. My aim is to get there as quick as possible.”
Here’s is the European Tour Group’s statement in full:
The European Tour Group announced today that Cedric Gugler has been sanctioned for breaching its Code of Behaviour in a tournament on the HotelPlanner Tour.
An Independent Disciplinary Panel, which met on November 3, 2025, found that Gugler had conducted himself in a manner that fell below the standards of behaviour and ethical conduct expected of Tour members during the first round of the Raiffeisenbank Golf Challenge at the 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 putting surfaces on multiple 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 Behaviour by virtue of a reckless infringement of the Rules of Golf.
Because of the serious breach, he has been suspended for the first 10 HotelPlanner Tour events of the season, beginning on January 29, 2026, the day of the Tour’s first tournament of the 2026 season, the SDC Open in South Africa.
He will be permitted to return after the first ten events have concluded, a date which will be determined once the 2026 HotelPlanner Tour schedule has been finalised and announced.
