Senior LPGA golfer Lee Ann Walker handed 58-shot penalty
Wednesday 16 October 2019 18:27, UK
Lee Ann Walker hit the headlines at the Senior LPGA Championship in Indiana after she was hit with an astonishing 58-shot penalty following her second round.
Her opening 85 was adjusted to a 127 after she incurred a 42-stroke penalty, while 16 shots were added to her second round to give her a 36-hole score of 73 over par.
Walker fell foul of the rule that bans caddies helping their players with alignment, but officials at French Lick were not alerted to the violations until midway through her second round.
Get the best prices and book a round at one of 1,700 courses across the UK & Ireland
It transpired that Walker's caddie was helping her line up putts on every green, and she incurred a two-shot penalty for each time she breached the rule that came into effect at the start of the year.
LPGA rules official Marty Robinson confirmed the severity of the penalties, and that a caddie for one of her playing partners had noticed the breach of the rules on the second day.
Walker then consulted a rules official on her fifth hole of her second round, and they collaborated to work out how many times she had used her caddie to check her alignment on the greens.
LPGA Tour Golf
This worked out at 21 violations in her first round, and a further eight times over the first few holes of her second round.
Walker's 13-over opening round was then changed to a 55-over 127 which featured five nines on her card, one of them at a par-three.
