One PGA Tour winner who teed it up at Torrey Pines will not be playing any more at the Farmers Insurance Open this week.
All the attention is on Brooks Koepka at the Farmers Insurance Open this week, with the American making his first start on the PGA Tour since 2022.
Koepka’s box-office return to the PGA Tour drew serious interest on day one at Torrey Pines.
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The 35-year-old opened up with a round of one-over-par 73 – a respectable return given the difficulty of the South Course.
However, he still has plenty of work to do on Friday in La Jolla, if he is to make the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open.
That’s something that one recent PGA Tour winner will not even have the chance to do, after he was unceremoniously disqualified at Torrey Pines on Thursday.
PGA Tour winner disqualified from the Farmers Insurance Open
With all the fanfare surrounding Koepka at Torrey Pines, one player’s disqualification on Thursday went under the radar somewhat.
Michael Brennan‘s opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open ended in disaster.
After posting a round of two-under par 70 on the North Course, the 2025 Bank of Utah Championship winner was informed of his disqualification from the tournament.
He was deemed to have used non-permitted green-reading materials. The use of green-reading books was banned from the PGA Tour on January 1st 2022.
Players are now allowed to look in their yardage books when on the greens, but they are not allowed to use spirit levels on the practice putting surfaces before their rounds.
However, PGA Tour players are allowed “Committee Approved” yardage books that show only minimal detail.
The PGA Tour released an official statement after Brennan’s disqualification, which read:
“Michael Brennan was DQ’d after the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open for a breach of Model Local Rule G-11; use of non-permitted green-reading materials.“
Collin Morikawa suffered a similar fate at the Hero World Challenge in 2023 after Matthew Fitzpatrick pointed out his use of a green-reading book.
The good thing for Brennan is that he will most definitely learn from this mistake.
Michael Brennan’s harsh but important lesson at the Farmers Insurance Open
Morikawa’s explanation of how he fell foul of the rules back in 2023 may explain what happened with Brennan.
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After the Hero World Challenge just over two years ago, he said: “Me and J.J. made a mistake. From our perspective, the way the rules are put out, obviously we can’t use levels out on the golf course, but from officials we’ve asked in the past, saying it’s happened, how you read a putt on the practice green and use a level and see it move a certain amount and then write it in your book. You can’t do that.
“I think with the players there is still some confusion.
“I think there needs to be a clear line with how the rules are going, it can’t be that difficult. It’s on me, I take full blame on that, thankfully it only happened that one time.“
Brennan clearly didn’t intentionally break the rules at the Farmers Insurance Open, or at least we hope he didn’t, but he was still severely punished nonetheless.
And in the long-run, that will be a good thing for the 23-year-old.
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