American pro Gabby Lemieux was disqualified before the start of Ladies European Tour Q-School in Morocco on Tuesday after reportedly missing her first-round tee time.
According to Ryan French of Monday Q Info on X, Lemieux is believed to have suffered an issue with the alarm on her phone, causing her to oversleep and consequently fail to make her 9:41am slot alongside Mexico's Mariam Colon and Sweden's Isabella Deilert. The trio were due to be the second group of the day to begin on the first tee.
The 28-year-old from Caldwell in Idaho was signed up to be in a 61-player field at Samanah Golf by Nicklaus - one of four sites used for the first round of LET Q-School along with Golf Club Rotana, Noria Golf Club and Palm Golf Ourika.
However, after making the long trip from the north-west corner of America to northern coast of Africa and having paid her entry fee, Lemieux has been forced to return home without hitting a shot in anger.
The LET's Pre-Qualifying rounds will continue on Wednesday and Thursday, with the top-23 and ties at three of the four sites (top-24 and ties at Noria) progressing through to the final round at Royal Golf Marrakech & Al Maaden Golf Marrakech between December 16-20.
Absolutely gut-wrenching mistake for American Gabby Lemiuex at @LETgolf Q-school. She was DQ’d this morning after missing her tee time. According to people I spoke with there was an issue with the alarm on her phone. Entry fee to and trip to Morocco and never hit a shot:December 10, 2024
Remarkably, this is not the first time the former Texas Tech player has been disqualified from a Q-School tournament, with another infraction taking place at LPGA Tour's version in August 2023, as reported by Monday Q Info's French.
During the final round of the first stage at the Dinah Shore course at Mission Hills last year, Lemieux accused one of her playing partners of twice replacing her ball incorrectly on the green - said competitor was right on the cut line, too.
After the first incident, Lemieux is said to have approached the other player in their group and ask if they saw something similar. When the Caldwell native claims that she saw it happen again, Lemieux reportedly talked to a rules official instead of confronting the alleged offender.
When the official came over to assess the player in question, they did not see any breach take place and the matter was left until after the round had finished. In the end, all players and caddies were asked to share their view of the incidents in the scoring tent and Lemieux's rival was ultimately hit with a two-stroke penalty.
Lemieux went on to call out her playing partner on Instagram, writing: “Another player and I called out a CHEATER today for marking and replacing her ball incorrectly. If you want to play professional golf, even if it was half an inch off … it is still cheating.”
However, there remained a twist in the tale for Lemieux. The American, who had missed the cut by three strokes anyway, checked the leaderboard on her phone and noticed a 74 next to her name instead of the 75 she thought she had signed for.
Having gone back in to ask if the online score was wrong, Lemieux learned that she had signed an incorrect scorecard and had ultimately been disqualified from stage one. The player in her group responsible for marking down the Texas Tech grad's scores had mistakenly pencilled in a par-4 instead of a bogey-5 on the 16th, consequently causing the issue.
Since then, Lemieux has played in a handful of events on the ANNIKA Women’s All Pro Tour while also taking advantage of an Epson Tour sponsor exemption on occasion.
