Champions Tour player flies home from tournament, then learns he made the cut

Tom Gillis boarded a flight home after finishing nine over par in his first two rounds at the Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club. Rounds of 74 and 75 left him well behind the pack. So, he packed up and headed back to Detroit. He had missed the cut.

Or so he thought.

When Gillis landed in his hometown of Detroit, he learned the cut line had drastically moved from six-over to nine-over, leaving Gillis narrowly still alive. Now hundreds of miles away, he was set to tee off the next morning.

“I landed and saw it,” Gillis told the Detroit News, “and said, ‘Now what?'”

He knew there were two options following the blunder. He could turn right back around and fly back in time to make his tee time the next day. Or he could enjoy the long weekend with his family.

He understandably chose the latter.

“I wasn’t going back,” Gillis told The Detroit News on Sunday. “I chose family over golf. It was more about spending the weekend with family.”

The withdrawal marks Gillis’ third in six appearances this year, with no top-20 finishes yet this season. Last year he pocketed nearly $500,000 in winnings thanks to a nice run of top-10 finishes.

He’ll head out to Iowa this week for the Principal Charity Classic, looking to get things back on track. And you’d imagine he’ll be keeping an extra keen eye out if his name falls around the cut line come Friday.

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