Overnight leader Francesco Molinari has been disqualified from the Irish Open after signing for a wrong score in his second round.
First-round leader disqualified after signing for wrong score
First round leader Italian Francesco Molinari was disqualified from the Irish Open after signing for a wrong score in his second round.
The Italian broke the County Louth course record on Thursday with a blistering 63 and shot a one-over-par 73 on Friday to stay in contention at the top of the leaderboard.
Indeed, he was only two strokes off the lead when disaster struck and it came to light that he had failed to spot an error on his scorecard.
Playing partner Peter Hanson had got two figures the wrong way round, putting the Italian down for a double-bogey at the 13th rather than the 12th.
Hanson had waited until the turn to write down the scores because the weather was so bad and mistakenly entered the six on the 13th.
Molinari did not notice the error and signed the card before handing it in to scorers, leading to his disqualification a short time later.
As a result, the 26-year-old lost his chance of competing for the £440,000 first prize and suffered a major setback in his bid to crack the world's top 50 in time to make a US Open debut next month.
Currently 72nd, he will probably now need to win next week's BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth to avoid the 36-hole qualifier at Walton Heath the following day.
Hanson was predictably upset for his partner, stating: "I felt guilty the moment I was told what had happened.
"I waited only because I didn't want to take the card out when it was raining so hard.
"I know these things happen, but it's just a shame that it happened to Francesco when he was doing so well in the tournament."
Hoey also disqualified
Molinari's was the second disqualification of the day, with Northern Ireland's Michael Hoey ruling himself out after discovering an extra club in his bag.
It came after ten holes of his second round when he stood two under, but because Hoey assumed it was there throughout his opening 71 and he should therefore have added penalty strokes he could not continue because he too had signed for a wrong score.
"I always have a rescue club and two-iron with me every week, but I just presumed my caddie knew that I wouldn't be taking the rescue because of the course," he explained.
"It's partly my fault, partly his I would say. I just didn't see it because it was under all the wet weather gear.
"It's so stupid and I can't believe it because I was playing well and trying to get up the leaderboard."
