Aaron Baddeley Disqualified

Baddeley was disappointed, but said when he realized what happened he had little choice.

As reported in a release by the PGA Tour

Aaron Baddeley was disqualified today for signing an incorrect scorecard after the second round. Today, Baddeley hit his tee shot into the hazard on No. 3. He called for a rules official to determine if he could move a stone that was under his foot during his stance. The rules official informed Baddeley that he could not intentionally move the stone.

When Baddeley reached No. 9, he realized that during the second round, he had hit his tee shot into the same hazard and HAD moved a stone that was under his foot in his stance. He called a rules official again, and Baddeley was asked if he intentionally moved the stone, or if it happened incidentally as he took his stance. Baddeley determined that it was intentional, therefore calling a penalty on himself (violation of Rule 13.4c). Since the penalty occurred during the second round, Baddeley had signed an incorrect scorecard yesterday and is therefore disqualified.

Baddeley receives last-place (80th), unofficial money: $35,000

I'm sure you are disappointed.

AB: Yeah, just disappointed. You always want to play four rounds and just play as much as you can. And especially in a World Golf Championships like this. Disappointing, but I had to do the right thing.

Could you walk us through how it all happened?

AB: I drove the ball in the right water twice, both times, it finished in the sand – in the rough edge right where I hit it. And yesterday, I sort of like kicked the stone out of the way as I was taking my stance, not really thinking anything of it. And then I was within a foot of it, in the same spot today. I had the same thing, and a rules official must have seen where I drove it, so he was, like, in the fairway. And I had another good-sized rock under my foot, and so I turned around and I sort of asked him if I could use my foot to move the rock out of the way. And he said if you feel you're taking your stance, you can, but you can't kick it out of the way. When he said that, I was like – ooh, I think I did that yesterday. I spoke to Mike Shea and told him what happened, and he said, unfortunately that will be a disqualification. And I sort of knew that.

So it was really a matter of you deciding what you had done. Players have to police themselves.

AB: That's the idea. You have to be honest with yourself. I've got to be able to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror. That's the great thing about this game. You know you can trust all the guys out there because you know they're going to do the same.