Tanking has reached golfing.
A PGA Tour caddie got off to a rough start in his qualifier for the U.S. Amateur Championship, so he decided to add weight to his sinking ship and run up his score to a stunning 202 — as in 131-over par.
Trey Bilardello, who has an impressive 2.2 handicap, missed the cut by 124 shots at the event at Mayacoo Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Bilardello’s final score was originally recorded as 194, but only because the scorer did not know how to enter his single-hole scores that went above 19, according to Golf Channel.
After parring his first two holes of the round, Bilardello reportedly shot a triple-bogey on a par 4 and then a 10 on a par 5. That was apparently enough to send him into tank mode. He shot as high as a 25 on a par 4, but decided to end on a simple note by parring his final hole.
“After the first nine, he said that he wanted to shoot the highest recorded score in USGA history,” Bilardello’s playing partner, Kristian Fortis, told Golf Channel. “He would chip shots and scoot his ball around on the tee box just to add strokes, and then he would just pipe a 2-iron down the middle of the fairway, hit it on the green and then just scoot his ball around again with his putter.
“He’d be right next to the hole and then I guess he’d think to himself that he didn’t have enough strokes and he’d hit his ball in the opposite direction of the hole. He was really rude to a lot of the officials, too.”
After the damage was done, the Florida State Golf Association decided to disqualify Bilardello, who has caddied for Jim Herman, Moriya Jutanugarn, Annie Park and currently Matt Every.
“The Florida State Golf Association, after consulting with the United States Golf Association, has disqualified Trey Bilardello under Rule 1.2 for serious misconduct and failing to play in the spirit of the game,” Beth Major, the USGA’s senior director of championship communications, told Golf Digest. “His disqualification was deemed appropriate as a result of the individual’s failure to show consideration for other players—deliberately playing away from the hole to run up his score.”
