Yet before signing his scorecard, the tour pro in his third season on the Korn Ferry Tour was informed that the something was amiss with that birdie on the 15th. After Tuten’s drive found thick rough left, he hacked out his second shot back into the fairway. Standing inside 120 yards with his third shot, Tuten picked up his ball, which wasn’t the issue given that the final round in Newburgh, Indiana, was being played under the lift, clean and place local rule because of wet conditions that lingered from earlier in the week.

Tuten proceeded to place his ball back in the fairway, only for it move ever so slightly forward. He then picked the ball back up and placed it again, only this time a few inches to the right.

And that would cost him his PGA Tour card.

According to Jim Duncan, the Korn Ferry Tour VP of rules, competitions and administration and the chief referee of the tournament, the local rule required that a player whose ball moves after being placed replace the ball on the same spot. “Then if it won’t stay at rest, that’s when you find the nearest place that you do, just like any other rule that requires placing,” Duncan said. “When he did not try to place that ball right back on the same spot [Rule 14.2e], that’s when he was under penalty, two shots for playing from the wrong place.”

So Tuten’s birdie — he just missed the green with his approach but rolled in a 14-footer — became a bogey, his two-over 74 became a 76 and instead of being in 30th place on the points list, he fell two spots to 32nd. (He started the week 29th in points.) The penalty allowed Rafael Campos to slide up from 31st to 30th and claim the final spot.

Shad Tuten was assessed a two-stroke penalty on hole No. 15 under preferred lies local rule E-3, turning a 2-over 74 into a 4-over 76. Tuten also fell from projected No. 30 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List to No. 32.

Chief referee Jim Duncan provided context on the ruling. pic.twitter.com/a5qXcqJLFC

— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) October 8, 2023

Tuten had played in 23 KFT events in 2023 prior to the Tour Championship. Despite missing nine cuts, and with one withdrawal, he had five top-10 finishes on the season, including a T-2 finish at the Club Car Championship in March. Tuten came into the week 29th on the points list, knowing a card was on the line.

“If you told me I was 29th coming in here, I would tell you I’m very happy,” Tuten said earlier in the week. “I’ve played the best golf I have my entire career, without winning, which, you know, obviously is what we work for. But you know I’ve played really, really, really good golf for an extended period of time.”

"I know that I'm ready."

Entering @tourchampulf 29th on the points list, Shad Tuten knows he's one solid week away from finishing inside the top 30 and becoming #TOURBound pic.twitter.com/YaIC7hQzmj

— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) October 4, 2023

The post PGA Tour-bound golfer heartbreakingly loses card when hit with penalty for rules violation at Korn Ferry Tour Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Luke List would rather have been elsewhere, at least until Sunday when he won the Korn Ferry Challenge on the Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

List, 35, would rather have been in Fort Worth, Texas, playing in the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge, but his FedEx Cup ranking, 124th, was not good enough to get into the field.

Instead, he opted for the Korn Ferry Tour event, shot rounds of 66, 70, 65 and 67 to win by one, his first victory since a 2012 Korn Ferry Tour win, in this his first Korn Ferry Tour start since 2015. He had gone 208 consecutive starts — 62 on the Korn Ferry Tour, 146 on the PGA Tour — without a win.

“It’s been a while since I’ve won,” List said, “and it’s been a couple months since we’ve played competitive golf, so it feels great, first of all to get back playing competitively and then to win the first week. I’m really excited.”

The last time List played competitively was the first round of the Players Championship next door at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. He was tied for 37th when the tournament was cancelled.

That was three months ago, yet List still was counting on momentum for help.

“The last time I was here was for the Players and I was playing pretty well,” he said. “I tried to just carry that [momentum] into the restart. Obviously, I would have loved to have been at Colonial, but I’m glad I was here this week. It was really a perfect storm to be here and I’m just excited for the rest of the year.”

List, who is in the field for the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage next week, birdied three of the first four holes on Sunday to erase a one-shot deficit to 54-hole leader Will Zalatoris and take a two-stroke lead.

He played the final 14 holes in even par, including a two-putt par from 40 feet at the last hole to defeat Joseph Bramlett and Shad Tuten by a stroke.

The post PGA Tour member wins Korn Ferry Tour’s first event back and ends personal slide in the process appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.