This pro was accused of cheating. Here’s her side of the story

Abbey Daniel was getting emotional. She had simply completed her remaining spherical at Stage 1 of LPGA and Epson Tour Q School, the place she’d made the minimize for Stage 2 by three pictures. It’d been a tough summer time of golf by her evaluation, so she started tearing up when she embraced her mom. She’d simply shot a bogey-free 69. There are countless tales illustrating the extent to which pro golf is a grind. This was hers.

There are additionally countless tales of how golf’s guidelines are adopted — or not. The majority of these tales happen with out a guidelines official in sight. The birdies and bogeys and, usually most significantly, penalty strokes? They all land at the discretion of the gamers concerned. As genuine and meritocratic as which may be, it will possibly result in disagreements. Sometimes these get animated. 

Enter LPGA and Epson Tour Q-School, the three-stage strain check via which Daniel and the greatest feminine golfers on the planet grind to earn their means into a greater tournaments performed for more cash and a better rank in the sport. Stage 1 happened final week, with 4 rounds performed in the desert in Southern California. Daniel wanted 72 and he or she shot 69. Or so she thought. 

As she tells the story, the first time Daniel heard of a possible guidelines infraction was as she reached the scoring space. Gabby Lemieux, one of her enjoying companions that day, had been retaining a detailed watch on how Daniel was marking her ball on the again 9. Lemieux’s caddie, her husband Jared, had been watching, too.

According to an account she shared with MondayQ Info, Lemieux grew to become suspicious on the group’s twelfth gap of the day. Then, on the group’s sixteenth gap, the seventh at the Dinah Shore course at Mission Hills, Daniel putted from the fringe to what she describes as about six inches from the gap. According to Lemieux’s take, the putt was extra like two toes. Whatever the distance, Lemieux had alerted the third participant of the group, Sara Ericsson, and her caddie, to maintain watch. 

Whatever occurred subsequent solely exists in the reminiscences of these gamers and their caddies; there isn’t any video proof. Lemieux believed Daniel positioned a mark to the side of her ball, cleaned it off, after which positioned her ball in entrance of that mark somewhat than to the side of it. In that occasion, Daniel’s ball would have been a half-inch nearer to the gap maybe, however that may be grounds for guidelines infraction. Daniel believed she marked her ball like anybody would, inserting the mark behind the ball after which changing the ball in entrance of the mark. 

“I don’t know if you play golf,” Daniel mentioned by cellphone in the days that adopted. “But who [marks their ball like] that? I’ve been playing golf since I was six years old. You don’t mark your ball to the side.” 

The two tales proceed to diverge there, as a result of Lemieux didn’t name out the infraction in the second. According to the account from MondayQ Info, Lemieux was conscious that Daniel ‘had a good round going and didn’t wish to interrupt her momentum.’ Instead, Lemieux known as in a guidelines official to watch the remaining two holes of Daniel’s spherical, the place no infraction happened and the group moved to scoring.

“I had no knowledge that anybody was watching me mark my golf ball the last seven holes,” Daniel mentioned. “I had no data that she alerted my enjoying opponents. I had no data that she known as a guidelines official to observe on the final two holes. I knew nothing till after the spherical. You’d assume that if that’s how I was marking my ball, and I was doing it on objective, I’d have achieved it on the final seven holes — not only a 6-inch tap-in. 

“At the end of the day if my playing competitors say they saw me put my ball back — even if it’s a quarter of an inch off of where I marked it — at the end of the day, that’s a penalty.”

According to Daniel, a heated dialogue happened in scoring, the place Lemieux and her caddie have been adamant Daniel had mis-marked her ball. The group’s third member, Ericsson, corroborated their account that there was a difficulty with how Daniel marked her ball on the seventh inexperienced. 

Daniel’s bogey-free 69 would grow to be a 71 after officers issued a two-shot penalty for breaking Rule 14.7a by enjoying from a incorrect place. Her par on the seventh grew to become a double bogey and he or she dropped 19 spots on the leaderboard. Importantly for her, she remained two pictures above the cutline of Top 90 and ties. She believes Lemieux ought to have informed her about the infraction in the second as a result of it could have probably dictated a special technique for Daniel on the remaining two holes.

“I think there would have been a bigger conversation — well, I know there would have been a bigger conversation if the penalty was putting me out of the cutline. How the rules official said it — which was really interesting to me — we had this conversation, we argued about it, all this stuff. Then the rules official goes, ‘We’re going to give you a two-stroke penalty on hole 7 and we’re going to see you at Second Stage of Q-School.’” 

With just a few days to let the incident settle, Daniel was impressed to inform her side of the story, largely as a result of of the weird flip that adopted. Lemieux unintentionally signed for an incorrect scorecard — a 74 as a substitute of a 75 — after which self-reported her personal mistake to event officers. She was not going to make the minimize, however acknowledged the mistake and was subsequently disqualified. Then she took to Instagram to elucidate why.

“Another player and I called out a CHEATER today for marking and replacing her ball incorrectly. (If you want to play professional golf, even if it was half an inch off…it is still cheating. While in the scoring area we hashed it out to figure out what we needed to do. In the process of doing so, I signed a wrong scorecard. The lady repeated 75 back to me and I acknowledged that it was right. A score on hole 15 was wrong. I bogeyed [sic] the hole instead of paring. I was sitting in the car when I noticed they had me for a 74. I marched back in there to make sure that the score wasn’t just wrong online. Unfortunately I did sign a wrong scorecard and I am DQ from Stage 1. I did my part to save the field from a cheater. Unfortunately I was too consumed with that to realize a score was wrong on my scorecard. I am glad that I noticed it and called myself out. We need more honest people and better professionals to hold themselves to higher standards so we don’t have to worry about this. Protecting the field cost me my own way. Sometimes that is just how it goes.”

Not so subtly included in there are three references to arguably the worst label in golf: cheater. It represents a black stain on a golfer’s repute. That’s what Daniel says “really bothers” her. That when folks seek for her identify on the Internet now, it will likely be related to that third rail of a time period. If Lemieux hadn’t signed for an incorrect card, Daniel thinks everybody would have moved on.

“To me, it seems like we wouldn’t be having this conversation if Gabby hadn’t got disqualified,” Daniel mentioned. “It seemed like the whole post — the purpose of it — was to blame me for her disqualification.”