Wrongly DQ’d golfer Sarah Brown agrees to confidential pact with Futures Tour
By: Emily Kay on 07/30/10 09:23 AMJuly 30 -- Sarah Brown, the golfer whom rules officials wrongly disqualified from last week’s Futures Tour event, has agreed to a confidential settlement with tour administrators.
As part of the agreement to compensate Brown for her inappropriate disqualification from The International at Concord in New Hampshire, the Browns will not discuss details of the arrangement.
Under wraps. “Sarah and I felt it was extremely important to get this issue behind us as soon as possible, and am pleased to inform you that we have reached an agreement,” Keith Brown, Sarah’s father and caddie, said in a statement on the golfer’s website. “One of the conditions of the agreement was absolute confidentiality, therefore I am unable to discuss any details with you now, or in the future.”
Tour officials had “nothing more to add,” a Futures Tour spokesperson told New England Golf Monthly Thursday in an e-mail.
Golf watchers may be able to glean at least some specifics of the pact when the Futures Tour releases its regularly updated tour rankings. Brown, who had tour earnings of $2,921 and was 106th on the money list prior to her DQ, asked the tour to assign any monetary damages to her money-list standings.
Grooves rule. Officials DQ’d Brown after nine holes of the final round of last week’s contest following a hasty determination that she was using a Ping wedge whose grooves did not conform with USGA rules. It turned out, however, that the wedge was legal, and Zayra Calderon, the tour’s chief executive called the Browns Monday to apologize.
The tour also offered to pay for Brown’s entry fees for its four remaining contests ($500 per event), an offer the Browns rejected.
Unacceptable. "I called Zayra Calderon on Wednesday and left a voice-mail message," Keith Brown told NEGM. "I told her the offer was not acceptable."
Instead, the Browns made counter-demands, which included the following:
- Reimbursement -- Equivalent prize money for the golfer finishing 8-under par, a score the Browns claimed Sarah was likely to reach given her previous scores on the back nine
- Money list -- The addition of the reimbursement to the golfer’s year-end earnings, “with a commitment that no tour player will be adversely affected” by the addition
- Q-school -- Waiver of entry fee to LPGA Q-school in the fall, to show “true remorse” for the officials’ treatment of the golfer
- DQ for grooves rules -- Amendment of LPGA and Futures Tour rules to prohibit officials from DQ’ing any player for groove violations during a round, and that the tour allow that player 24 hours to appeal any such decision with the USGA
- School for officials -- A commitment from both tours that rules officials receive annual instruction about how to implement rules
It’s a grind. Women grind it out in the backwaters of the LPGA’s developmental tour to earn their LPGA playing cards. The top five moneymakers are eligible for all LPGA tourneys, except majors, the following season; the next five receive “conditional” status that lets them earn their way into specific tourneys.
While no one can ever know for sure, Brown believed she could have been in the money if officials had not “dragged her off the course, sobbing,” the golfer’s father said.
“The easy [back] nine were ahead of her,” he said.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Kay also writes the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner blogs.)
