A 21-year-old teacher was disqualified from the final stage of the DP World Tour Qualifying School on Monday for damaging a green.
The DPWT said in a statement to Ryan French of Monday Q Info that the player, Frank Kennedy of England, was disqualified for “serious misconduct after causing deliberate damage to the course”.
But Kennedy he said in a statement of his own Monday night ET that he “did not intentionally or deliberately damage the putting surface, and any comments that say otherwise are completely wrong.”
The incident in question occurred on the 11th green in the fourth round of the six-round qualifier in Tarragona, Spain, from which the top 15 finishers and ties will earn DPWT cards for 2027.
Kennedy, who finished his fourth round at 15 under for the week and well positioned to make the top-60 cut and tie 72 holes, said in his statement: “On the 11th green I missed a birdie putt and tapped. repaired. It was properly repaired before moving forward, I should have called an arbitrator to verify the repair, and I learned from it.
French, citing “multiple” unnamed sources, said Kennedy “took a ‘divot’ off the 11th green. One player described it as ‘a foot divot’ about 4 feet behind the hole”.
The DPWT did not respond to GOLF’s request for comment on Monday.
Kennedy’s statement continued: “I always respect and follow the Rules of Golf. If accidental contact like this, repaired in one round, is a disqualifying offense, I respect that. But it is not clear to me that it is, and many senior players I spoke to tonight were surprised by the decision.”
Kennedy added that he asked tour officials for clarification and a review, and said he would “respect the outcome of that review.”
French, also citing unnamed sources, also said that Kennedy’s father, Simon, who is a sports agent and performance coach, “is trying to get the call reversed or an ‘injunction’ of some kind.”
Simon Kennedy did not immediately respond Monday to an email from GOLF.
The decision was consequential not only for Frank Kennedy. Because his DQ moved the cutline from 12 under to 11 under, seven players, who otherwise would have missed the cutline, advanced to the fifth round. Any player who completes all six rounds but finishes outside the top 15 will earn status on DPWT’s feeder circuit, the HotelPlanner Tour.
DQs for damaging the course are rare but they do happen. In 2019, the DPWT disqualifies Sergio Garcia to damage five greens at the Saudi International. “I respect the decision of my disqualification,” Garcia said later in a statement. “In frustration, I damaged a couple of greens, for which I apologize, and I have informed my teammates that it will never happen again.” (Garcia, infamous, done strike againin the fourth round of the Masters earlier this year. After a tee shot on the 4th hole, Garcia twice hammered the driver’s head into the ground, tearing chunks of turf from the tee box. The tournament committee did not disqualify Garcia, but issued him a code of conduct warning.)
The rule that gives the committees license to DQ players to misbehave is below “1.2 Rules of Player Conduct”, which states, among other things, that “all players are expected to play in the spirit of the game by taking good care of the course – for example, replacing divots, smoothing bunkers, repairing ball-marks, and not causing unnecessary damage to the course.”
The rule book continues: “There is no penalty under the Rules for failing to act in this way, except that the Committee may disqualify a player for acting against the spirit of the game if it finds that the player has committed serious misconduct.
“‘Serious misconduct’ is player behavior that is so far from what is expected in golf that the more severe sanction of removing a player from competition is warranted. Penalties other than disqualification may be imposed for player misconduct only if these penalties are adopted as part of a Code of Conduct under Rule 1.2b.”
The Code of Conduct took center stage at the US Open earlier this year after the USGA hooks Joaquin Neimann in two strokes not to damage the course but to throw a club.
Kennedy, who lives in Jupiter Island, Florida, had a sterling junior and late-adolescent amateur career in both the UK and the US, but elected to forego the college game.
“You can play college golf and with the University PGA Tour, you have to play for five full years to be relevant for that,” he told the DPWT after he became a professor in 2023. “I feel like I’m ready to go back now and get out there and start competing. I’m a 2024 graduate, so I thought it would be another 15 months until I go to college and then potentially five years on top. I think that’s a long time to wait.
“I thought I might go to college for a couple of years, but my game feels good and ready for the professional stage.”
