Experience on the PGA Tour can be expensive. For Michael Brennan, the bill arrived this week in the form of a disqualification.
And a lesson he won’t soon forget.
Brennan, a 23-year-old rookie who won his first PGA Tour start last fall, was disqualified after the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines after officials determined he had used unauthorized green reading material. He had started with a two-under 70 on the North Course and was tied for 55th at the time.
The Tour’s initial statement offered few details other than citing a violation of Model Local Rule G-11. On Friday, Brennan himself provided the missing context.
In an Instagram post, Brennan said he recently started working with a course data analyst to hone his course strategy. The analyst provided green maps with hole locations to help with approach planning, and Brennan said he sketched a few arrows in his distance book while studying those materials — an action prohibited by Tour rules.
After completing his round, Brennan said he asked the analyst for clarification on a feature shown on the cards, and was subsequently told that transferring such information to a range book was not permitted. When Brennan realized the mistake, he said he contacted a PGA Tour rules official and was subsequently disqualified.
Model Local Rule G-11 limits the use of course mapping features and handwritten notes that can assist in reading the line of play on the putting green, part of a broader effort to limit the role of detailed green-reading tools in competition.
Brennan gained national attention in October when he won the Bank of Utah Championship at the Black Desert Resort after receiving a sponsor exemption for the event. The win earned him a two-year exemption from the PGA Tour and the right to education at the highest level of the game. Brennan started the 2026 calendar with a missed cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii, followed by a 56th-place finish at the American Express in La Quinta last week. He gets more herbs with each start, and not all of it is pleasant. But Brennan seemed to take it all at ease.
“While this is a painful lesson to learn,” Brennan wrote, “I look forward to the party in the desert next week at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.”
Actually, the official name of the event is the WM Phoenix Open. But we don’t disqualify him for that.
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