Yahoo Sports Golfer DQd from USGA event after carding 202, deliberately playing away from hole: 'He just did not care'
There was a mistake making the rounds on social media Sunday showing that a golfer at a U.S. Amateur qualifier in West Palm Beach, Florida carded a 194.
It turns out that he actually shot a 202.
That golfer was 33-year-old Trey Bilardello, according to multiple reports. And yes, that was his score over the course of 18 holes, good for 131 strokes over par.
It’s a score even the worst weekend hackers wouldn’t dream up in their darkest golf nightmares.
Brutal score carded by competent golfer
The USGA confirmed the score with Golf Digest, noting that it worked in collaboration with the Florida State Golf Association to disqualify Bilardello, who is a professional caddie for PGA Tour player Matt Every and sports a 2.2 handicap. Here’s the statement on the matter from Beth Major, USGA senior director of championship communications, via Golf Digest:
"The Florida State Golf Association, after consulting with the United States Golf Association, has disqualified Trey Bilardello under Rule 1.2 for serious misconduct and failing to play in the spirit of the game.
"His disqualification was deemed appropriate as a result of the individual’s failure to show consideration for other players—deliberately playing away from the hole to run up his score.”
So he did it on purpose?
It turns out Bilardello was intentionally running up his score. At least that makes sense. Kind of.
‘He just did not care ... was really rude’
His playing partner Kristian Fortis, a freshman at LaSalle, described the scene to Golf Channel.
“He just started off like normal,” Fortis said. “He was actually not a bad golfer, and he hit some nice shots. He had two pars, and then it started to go a little downhill.”
Bilardello’s meltdown started after a triple-bogey on his third hole and a 5-over 10 on his fourth. After that, he apparently didn’t care and set his sights on carding the highest score possible.
“After the first nine, he said that he wanted to shoot the highest recorded score in USGA history,” Fortis said. “He just did not care. He was really rude to a lot of the officials, too. Something was off.”
He would ‘scoot his ball around on the tee box’
According to Fortis, Bilardello looked for creative ways to add strokes to his score.
“He would chip shots and scoot his ball around on the tee box just to add strokes, and then he would just pipe a 2-iron down the middle of the fairway, hit it on the green and then just scoot his ball around again with his putter,” Fortis told Golf Channel. “He’d be right next to the hole and then I guess he’d think to himself that he didn’t have enough strokes and he’d hit his ball in the opposite direction of the hole.”
As for the 194 that was originally reported? That was due to the FSGA’s scoring system not being capable of registering such high scores.
"There's a glitch in our online scoring system," FSGA rules director Darin Green told Golf Channel. “The issue prevented individual hole scores greater than 19 from being submitted.”
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