Raul Pereda was DQ’d from the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in unusual fashion on Saturday morning.
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Friday’s WD is a rite of passage on the PGA Tour.
If you’re not familiar, this tradition occurs on Fridays when the PGA Tour fails to complete 36 holes before dark. On those days, players who don’t know they’re only a few holes removed from losing when play starts on Saturday will choose to enter WD. In theory, the decision is economical: it saves the player the cost of the hotel for the evening and allows him to start the journey to his next destination.
More unusual is the situation that arose on Saturday morning at the Butterfield Bermuda Open, where pro Raul Pereda allowed himself to be tested early-Saturday. DQ.
The situation began on Friday evening in Bermuda, where Pereda was among the group of professionals who finished the second round of the match as the sun set behind the clouds. With the speed slipping and the weather exacerbating the problem, the Tour was unable to finish its second round of the match before the horn sounded in the dark. Only 10 players were affected by the delay in Round 3, including Pereda, leaving each to return to the course at 6:45 a.m. the next morning to complete the remainder of Round 2.
Yet on Saturday morning at 7:19 am local time – 30 minutes after play resumed at Butterfield – Pereda was DQ’d by the PGA Tour for failing to show his tee time. Instead of WD, Pereda allowed the Tour to be DQ’d for “not being in the playing field” when the horn sounded again.
Thankfully, Pereda lost little. The 28-year-old PGA Tour rookie faced almost zero difficulty making the cut before the DQ. He was four shots off the cut with two holes to play when the horn sounded on Friday, meaning he needed to play his final three holes – a par-3 and a par-4 – at a combined 4-under to reach the weekend.
Still, it was unusual in PGA Tour circles to skip the well-established tradition of WDing before the start of Saturday’s play, as teammate Paul Barjon did just minutes before Saturday’s start.
Andrew Novak and Rafael Campos lead the Butterfield Bermuda Championship heading into Sunday’s final round.
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