Garrick Higgo had a 67 in him at Aronimink Golf Club on Thursday. He signed for a 69 because of the way the PGA Championship counts seconds.
The South African arrived at the first tee around 30 seconds past the 7:18 a.m. tee time of his opening Round 1 group. Under the PGA of America's automatic late-arrival rule — five minutes or less of tardiness equals a two-stroke penalty — Higgo was assessed two strokes before he hit a shot. He absorbed it, opened with par, navigated Aronimink's Donald Ross greens, and turned what would otherwise have been a co-lead score into a 1-under 69.
"I was bummed when he said I had a two-shot penalty," Higgo said. "Obviously this is the first time it's happened, so I wasn't sure quite what — I mean, I was just happy that they allowed me to tee off, firstly."
Higgo described the moment as a mental reset rather than a fight against the rules.
"I just said to myself it's going to be a great opportunity to shoot a low score," Higgo said.
The 27-year-old later walked through the timing of his pre-round prep, pinpointing the only place he could have built in margin.
"I worked out my warm-up from seeing my physio at 5:15 to being in the gym at 5:30 to being on the putting green at 6:00 to then being on the range at 6:30," Higgo said. "If anything, I could have added maybe five minutes for the walk from the range to the tee. But everything's kind of here. I did everything on time."
"I was there at 7:18 30 seconds," Higgo said. "And 7:18 was the tee time, or 7:19, whatever it was. I was there on time, but the rule is if you're one second late, you're late. So if you think about it, I was there on time."
His caddy had registered the danger before Higgo did and was already calling him toward the tee. By the time Higgo arrived, the scorer had already begun explaining the penalty.
"My caddy was yelling at me to get to the tee," Higgo said. "I knew it was probably going to happen, yeah."
The penalty is administered at the scoring tent rather than on the tee, which gave Higgo one more swing-around to absorb the situation before adjusting his card.
"As I walked down to the scorer, the announcer who gave me the scorecard said I had a two-shot penalty," Higgo said. "I wasn't going to give up and shoot 80. So there was only one thing I could do, and that was make birdies and pars and hit it where I wanted to hit it."
He did. Higgo played the rest of his round bogey-free for long stretches, took advantage of the softened early-wave greens, and finished one shot off the bonus he might have otherwise carried into Friday. With the two-stroke gift already applied, his actual ball-striking score on Thursday at Aronimink — without the penalty — would have been a 3-under 67 and a place in the co-lead group with Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele's chase-pack neighbours and the other major-rookie names that put themselves on the morning leaderboard.
Higgo was asked what he made of his own pre-round pace.
"If you know me," Higgo said, "then yeah, you know I am very casual and laid back. But I don't know, I just don't want to be there 10 minutes early. I know that five minutes is fine. I thought I had time. I was just obviously too casual."
"I obviously don't want to bother anybody," Higgo said. "So yeah."