I am now and will forever be a fan of Jason Millard. Who is Jason Millard I hear you ask, and I really have no idea. Though if your daughter brings him home you should give him a fair hearing. From the USGA:
Jason Millard has been disqualified from the 2014 U.S. Open Championship on Saturday, June
7 after reporting a self-imposed penalty in sectional qualifying.
“We commend Jason for bringing this matter to our attention,” said Daniel B. Burton, USGA vice president and chairman of the Championship Committee. “At this time, we have no recourse but to disqualify him under the Rules of Golf and specifically Rule 34-1b.”
Millard, who qualified in Memphis, Tenn. after carding a pair of 68s, was playing his third shot on the 18th hole of Colonial Country Club’s North Course, his 27th hole of the day, when the penalty occurred.
“I’m pretty sure I grounded my club in the bunker,” said Millard, who will be replaced by amateur Sam Love, of Trussville, Ala., the second alternate from the same qualifying site. “I didn’t see anything for sure but I felt something and I saw a small indentation. It happened so fast, I really don’t know 100 percent but deep down, I believe I did. I couldn’t find peace about it. For five days, I practiced and I couldn’t get it off my mind.
“It’s heart-breaking but what I was feeling in my heart didn’t feel right,” said Millard, who played in this year’s PGA Tour Honda Classic and was a two-time All-American at Middle Tennessee State University. “It’s the right decision and I am sticking with it.”
Jason Sobel profiles the young man for Golf Channel, adding some amazing details, including this background:
If there’s ever been a professional golfer who needed a big break, it’s Jason Millard.
Two years ago, he missed reaching the final stage of Q-School by one measly stroke. This year, he owns conditional status on the developmental Web.com Tour, but hasn’t gotten into a single event. He’s tried to Monday qualify, but is 0-for-7 so far.
That’s hardly the extent of his heartache, though.
Last year, his father, Eddie, passed away at 60 after a year-long battle with leukemia. “He was my best friend,” Jason says of the man who introduced him to the game.
That left the 24-year-old to care for his mother, Debbie, all alone. Right around the time Jason was born, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. About two or three years ago, her condition worsened to the point where she can no longer walk. He still lives with her in his childhood home and though she has a daily caretaker, his responsibilities include buying her groceries, paying her bills and ensuring her medications are filled.
So, was this another instance of a golfer done in by Monday morning quarterbacks? Yes, but not the kind you think:
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| Jason Millard. |
Millard notified playing partner Tommy Gainey, but he was on the other side of the green and didn't see anything. He told a rules official, who informed him that it was his call and his call alone.
It was a decisive call. When the 36-hole qualifier was over, he’d earned a spot in the field by one stroke. If he’d given himself a two-stroke penalty, he would have missed a playoff by one. For five days, he thought about it. All the time.
“I literally thought about it for every single second of the day,” he says. “I just kept asking myself what to do. I kept saying, ‘I’m not 100 percent sure,’ so I never did anything. But it kept on eating at me inside.”
On Saturday morning, Millard packed up for Pinehurst and started driving from his Murfreesboro, Tenn., home with his caddie. They’d driven about an hour, halfway between Murfreesboro and Knoxville – “in the middle of nowhere,” he calls it – when he had a change of heart.
He called a USGA official and explained that he couldn't compete with the uncertainty weighing on him.
Now I am of somewhat mixed feelings about this. In all of the discussion of television viewers calling in penalties, there's always been one inconsistency that grates on me. Simply put, the Tour plays under different rules on Sunday than it does Thursday through Saturday. That television viewer that phones in a violation at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday will be told, "Thank you very much Mr. Ganz, but the event has ended." So you're DQ'd for signing an incorrect scorecard, unless it's the Sabbath...
So, why couldn't the USGA have taken that position with Mr. Millard? Of course he had turned his car around, but you'll take my point... In any event, the aforementioned mixed feelings do not relate to the young man in question, whose actions were beyond reproach.
We can only hope that Jason Millard ever makes it to the Tour, so we can revisit this often.
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