KFT pro hit with late penalty that costs him PGA Tour card

Voice over: Michael Robles
Writer: Golf Channel
Video editor: Lance Keller

Shad Tuten figured he’d locked up his PGA Tour card for
the first time.
Despite a closing bogey Sunday at the Korn Ferry Tour
Championship, the 31-year-old
Tuten
was projected to
finish No. 30 in points, just inside the cutoff for players
graduating to the big tour.
But the tape told a different story.
Upon arriving in the scoring area, Tuten was notified by a
rules official that television cameras had shown him
improperly applying the lift-clean-and-place rule in the 15th
fairway. Tuten’s initially lifted his ball, cleaned it and
placed it, only to have the ball roll forward. As Jim Duncan,
the KFT’s vice president of competition and administration,
explained, Tuten then should’ve tried to re-place the ball
on the exact spot as the previous placement, and then if
the ball moved again he could place it at a near-point.
Tuten, however, skipped that second step.
“When he did not try and replace that ball right back on the
same spot, that’s when he got two shots for playing from
the wrong place,” Duncan said.
The two-shot penalty gave Tuten a bogey at the par-5 hole
and a 4-over 76 for his round, dropping him to T-28 on the
leaderboard and a final position of No. 32 in points after he
began the week at No. 29.
Tuten has still never teed it up in a PGA Tour event.
Tuten’s misfortune allowed Rafa Campos, who missed a
short putt on his final hole earlier in the day, to end up No.
30 in points.
“Horrible,” an emotional Campos, No. 23 to start the week,
described afterward when asked about the nerve-racking
wait.
“I’m just really happy I was able to finish in the position I’m
in right now,” added Campos, who played as a rookie on
the PGA Tour in 2020-21.
Tuten later replied to a social post about Campos: “Even
better when he gets his card because of a fluke ruling.”
Paul Barjon won the event at Victoria National to jump
from No. 45 to eighth in points. Mac Meissner, Wilson
Furr, Josh Teater and Roger Sloan were the other players
to play their way inside the top 30 this week.
Furr rallied for par from an adjacent fairway at No. 18.
Teater played his last five holes in 1 under. Sloan canned
a 12-footer for par on his final hole.
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