The late-Friday WD is a rite of passage on the PGA Tour.
If you’re not familiar, this tradition takes place on Fridays when the PGA Tour fails to complete 36 holes before darkness. On those days, players who know they are only a few holes removed from missing the cut when play begins on Saturday will instead opt to WD. In theory, the decision is economical: saving a player the cost of a hotel for the evening and allowing them to get a head start on travel to their next destination.
Much less common is the situation that arose on Saturday morning at the Butterfield Bermuda Open, in which pro Raul Pereda allowed himself to be assessed an early-Saturday DQ.
The situation began on Friday evening in Bermuda, where Pereda was among a group of pros finishing up the second round of play as the sun dipped behind the clouds. With the pace of play slipping and weather only exacerbating the problem, the Tour was unable to finish its second round of play before blowing the horn for darkness. Just 10 players were implicated in the round 3 delay, including Pereda, leaving each to return to the course at 6:45 a.m. the following morning to finish out the last vestiges of round 2.
Yet on Saturday morning at 7:19 a.m. local time — 30 minutes after play restarted at the Butterfield — Pereda was DQ’d by the PGA Tour for failing to show up to his tee time. Rather than WD, Pereda allowed the Tour to DQ him for “not being in place to play” when the horn sounded again.
Thankfully, Pereda had little to lose. The 28-year-old PGA Tour rookie faced near-zero odds of making the cut before the DQ. He was four shots outside of the cutline with two holes to play when the horn blew on Friday, meaning he needed to play his final three holes — a par-3 and par-4 — in a combined four-under to make it into the weekend.
Still, the situation was unusual for PGA Tour circles for skipping over the well-established tradition of WDing before the start of play on Saturday, as fellow pro Paul Barjon did just minutes before play began on Saturday.
Andrew Novak and Rafael Campos share the lead at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship heading into Sunday’s final round.
