Golfer Clement Berardo disqualified after running out of balls
Thursday 20 June 2019 18:39, UK
France's Clement Berardo has been disqualified from a tournament after running out of golf balls.
Berardo lost the final ball in his bag on the 16th hole of the Andalucia-Costa del Sol Match Play 9 and was therefore disqualified for failing to finish his round.
The 32-year-old had suffered a nightmare start by running up a quadruple-bogey nine on the first hole and also bogeyed the sixth and eighth to reach the turn in 41.
Berardo, who had missed the cut in his last four Challenge Tour starts and is currently ranked 1,909th in the world, then double-bogeyed the 10th and dropped further shots on the 14th and 15th before running out of balls on the par-five 16th.
Tiger Woods almost suffered the same fate as Berardo in the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach after taking some balls to his hotel room in order to practice his putting after the second round was suspended due to bad weather.
Woods forgot to replace the balls in his bag on Saturday morning and, after giving a few away to spectators during play, the 15-time Major winner pulled his tee shot on the 18th into the ocean.
Unbeknown to Woods, that meant he had just one left, but he safely found the fairway with his second attempt and salvaged a bogey six on his way to a record 15-shot victory.
His caddie Steve Williams did not tell Woods how close he came to disaster until several months later.
