Garrick Higgo was penalized two strokes for being late to the tee for his opening round at the PGA Championship.
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Garrick Higo assessed penalty.
The 2026 PGA Championship is underway, and a two-time PGA Tour winner was assessed a surprising penalty.
Garrick Higgo, a 26-year-old from South Africa, who has won twice on the PGA Tour, was late to his first-round tee time. Due to Higgo being late, he was assessed a two-stroke penalty.
“Garrick Higgo penalized 2 strokes for being late to his tee time. In the first round of a major championship. No idea how that’s possible,” golf reporter Dan Rapaport wrote on X.
Higgo was one minute late to his tee time, with a putter in hand, which resulted in the penalty being assessed.
Garrick Higgo was penalized two strokes for being late to the tee for his opening round at the PGA Championship.
Being late to a tee time is a massive surprise, especially in a major championship. So, what went wrong or why Higgo was late isn’t known at this time, but he’s already behind the eight ball to begin the PGA Championship.
The PGA Tour revealed that Higgo was on the putting green but not “within the area defined as the starting point at his starting time.” Meanwhile, according to the Rules of Golf, a player is assessed a two-stroke penalty when arriving no more than five minutes late to their tee time. Any player arriving more than five minutes late is subject to disqualification.
Higgo won the Palmetto Championship in 2021, which was his first win on the PGA Tour, and secured him a tour card through the end of the 2023 season. He then won again in April of 2025 when he won the Puntacana Championship.
Higgo has also won three times on the European Tour.
The 26-year-old was in a group with Michael Brennan and Shaun Micheel.
The PGA Championship is the second major of the year, but the scores should be low.
The event is at the Aronimink Golf Club just outside of Philadelphia, and it’s a course that is fairly straightforward to play. Rory McIlroy said before the event that it’s a course that won’t test everyone’s bag.
“I like the style of golf. I like the bunkering,” McIlroy said on Tuesday. “There’s a lot of bunkers. I think it provides quite a nice bit of variety with shorter par-4s, a couple of longer par-4s. The par-3s, there’s three pretty long ones and a shorter one. I think in this day and age, I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag. There’s going to be a lot of, gain, as I said, strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent.
“It’s basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer, newly renovated, I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.”
McIlroy, however, believes the greens will be the reason for a win or a loss for most players.
The first round of the PGA Championship is underway, which is the second major of the season.
Ahead of the second major, here is how fans in the United States can watch all the action, with all times in Eastern.
Television
Steaming on ESPN+
Radio (SiriusXM)
Scottie Scheffler is the reigning champion.
Cole Shelton Cole Shelton covers the NHL, MLB, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns for Heavy.com. He has covered pro and college sports since 2016, including bylines at BJ Penn, USA Today, SB Nation, Rotowire, Canadian Baseball Network and more. More about Cole Shelton
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