Discover how a major clerical mistake by the PGA Tour led to ineligible player MJ Daffue competing in a key tournament, while Rayhan Thomas was left out. Explore the details of this surprising mix-up, its impact on the players, and how golf’s biggest tours handle administrative errors. Plus, a look at similar controversies in women’s golf. Stay tuned for an in-depth breakdown of this PGA Tour blunder and its implications for tournament integrity.
Major blunder alert. The PGA Tour just put an ineligible player into a million-doll tournament field and one golfer was left stranded while watching from the driving range. But here’s where it gets controversial. When the dust settled this week at the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Lincoln, Nebraska, rising star Rayan Thomas realized he had been bumped from the lineup despite officially qualifying. Thomas, who finished 107th on the Cornferryy Tour points list, had every right to tee off. But in his place was MJ Dafu, a player with a lapsed PGA Tour card and a medical exemption that should no longer have counted. It is a simple administrative oversight, right? Not quite. MJ Dafu first caught our attention earlier in the season with appearances at the Ice Co Championship and Barracuda Championship on the PGA Tour. Events he technically wasn’t eligible for after his card expired. According to Monday Q info, his name never should have appeared in the PGA Tour notexempt category on the KFT priority list. Yet, Dafu slipped in at number four on that list and nabbed Thomas’s spot. Imagine the scene. Thomas’s father flew in from Dubai to watch his son compete, only to see Rayan sit on the range all day Thursday as the first alternate. No withdrawals came. The field stayed intact and Thomas went home empty-handed. As the tour admitted, the error was on their end, and they’re now scrambling.
