If they arrive less than five minutes late, they receive a two-shot penalty, and that’s what saved Higgo as he came in within that five-minute limit. Had he crossed that five-minute window, he would have been disqualified from the PGA Championship altogether. Tournament officials later clarified that Higgo was “not within the area defined as the starting point at his starting time,” even though he reached the tee moments after one of his playing partners had already hit his drive. After his round, Higgo explained exactly what happened to him that morning in a conversation with ESPN’s Marty Smith.
“I was obviously there on time, but late, and that’s a two-shot penalty,” Higgo said on ESPN. “You have five minutes then until you’re DQ’d, so yeah, I guess I could have taken five minutes longer, or you know, just under that, but you know, obviously it’s unfortunate. I usually cut it fine.
“I don’t want to be there (at the tee) ten minutes early. I know that five minutes is fine. I thought I had time. I was obviously too casual. I could have added maybe five minutes for the walk from the range to the tee, but everything is kind of here. I did everything on time, like I worked out my warmup from seeing my physio at 5:15, to being in the gym at 5:30, to being on the putting green at 6:00, to then being on the range at 6:30. I left the range at… I don’t know when I left. There’s probably video of that. Yeah, I don’t know. I just cut it a little fine.”
Now, the 5.3a rule does have an exception for exceptional circumstances, such as an accident or an emergency, where the committee can waive the penalty. But in Higgo’s case, there wasn’t any exception. He was present right there, but his laid-back attitude made things worse for him.
Higgo later admitted that he realized he might be in trouble only after hearing his caddie shouting for him while he was still on the putting green. “My caddie was yelling at me to get to the tee,” he said. “I hit one putt, I thought I heard my name, my caddie was yelling at me and I ran down.” Even then, Higgo said he did not argue immediately with officials because he needed to focus on starting his round. “I didn’t say anything — I knew I had to get myself ready,” he explained. “I couldn’t argue with him and then hit it out of bounds.”
That penalty cost Higgo big time. He finished his round at 1-under 69, but without the penalty, his score would have been 3-under 67. nstead of sitting in a seven-way tie for the overnight lead alongside names like world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and former champion Martin Kaymer, Higgo finished two shots back despite recovering well from the disastrous start. That would have tied him with Min Woo Lee, Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, and Ryo Hisatsune. Instead, the late penalty cost him a chance to sit at the top of the leaderboard after Round 1.
The late penalty hurt even more because Garrick Higgo has already had a difficult 2026 season. His form has not been strong overall. Higgo dropped to 84th in the world rankings, and his statistics show struggles in important parts of the game. He ranks 161st on tour in approach shots and putting, which are key skills needed to score well in tournaments. The PGA Championship is also a tournament where Higgo has historically struggled, as the 27-year-old entered this week still searching for his first top-40 finish in a major championship.
On top of it, this lack of punctuality could have cost Higgo big time. In 2011, Dustin Johnson also got a two-shot penalty for being late, but the reason was different. His caddie thought the tee time was 40 minutes later than it really was. Because of this mistake, Johnson had to rush when he found out the correct time and arrived late to the tee. That penalty removed him from a playoff, and Martin Kaymer went on to win the tournament.
A similar case happened in 2019 with David Lipsky at the PGA Championship. He was also late to the tee, but he reached just in time within the five-minute limit. So he did not get disqualified, but he still received a two-shot penalty.
One might think that a two-shot penalty might not carry so much weight, but it does change the entire game.
Golfers who faced a similar situation to Garrick Higgo
Garrick Higgo’s two-shot penalty didn’t put him out of the game or lower his rankings too much. But golfers Jordan Spieth and Henrik Stenson faced the worst side of it. During the 2021 Hero World Challenge and faced a similar penalty, which affected their rankings. Both players were former champions of the event, but they were not in contention during this round. They started in the first group of the day at the par-5 ninth hole in Nassau, Bahamas.
While playing the ninth hole, both Spieth and Stenson accidentally used the tee markers for the par-3 17th hole. This happened because the tournament had moved the tee markers, and the players did not notice the change. They hit their tee shots from the wrong starting place and continued playing the hole before realizing the mistake.
Officials then told Spieth and Stenson to go back and play their shots again from the correct tee box. They had to correct their mistake before continuing the hole. Both players got a two-stroke penalty because they hit from the wrong tee area. After that, they carried on with their rounds. But the mistake hurt their scores badly. Stenson finished with a 72, and Spieth finished with a 76.
They ended the day far down the leaderboard because of this error. For Higgo, though, the bigger concern will simply be avoiding another costly lapse when he returns for his second-round tee time on Friday afternoon.
