Ana Pelaez Trivino, a winner on the Ladies European Tour competing as a rookie on the LPGA circuit this year, was playing in her third AIG Women’s Open this week, and playing well. Rounds of 72 and 74 in tricky conditions over the opening two days on the Old Course at St. Andrews put her at two over, 10 strokes back of halfway leader Nelly Korda but comfortably inside the cut line for the first time in her career in a major.
But Trivino won’t be back for the weekend after the R&A announced on Friday that the 26-year-old Spaniard had been disqualified because of a rules violation. According to the R&A, Trivino’s caddie, Miguel Evangelio Gomez-Escolar, used a distance measuring device on the 10th and 18th holes during Friday’s second round. The R&A, however, prohibits the use of DMDs for the championship under Model Local Rule GS.
Had Gomez-Escolar only used the device once, Trivino would have been assessed a two-shot penalty but likely still made the cut on the number. But because he used it a second time, the penalty applied under Rule 4.3 was a disqualification.
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Trivino, who played college golf at South Carolina, isn’t the first LPGA rookie to be DQ’d in a women’s major for her caddie mistakenly using a rangefinder in recent years. At the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, Natthakritta Vongtaveelap was disqualified for the same offense.
The mistake could prove costly for Trivino, who has made just three cuts in 10 LPGA starts this season, her best showing coming last week with a T-48 finish at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open