The leading money winner on the PGA Tour China has been suspended for six months by the China Golf Association for signing incorrect scorecards.
Xin-Jun Zhang leads the newly formed tour with ¥650,600 (£66,000), with the top five in money earnings slated to earn exempt status on the 2015 Web.com Tour, a development circuit for the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour and China Golf Association entered a partnership to start the tour this year.
PGA Tour officials declined to comment, but the China Golf Association released a statement dated October 24 announcing the suspension.
The organisation said that at the Lanhai Open in June and the Cadillac Championship in September, Zhang was disqualified for signing for the wrong scores, “which have been verified by multiple sources. Such behaviour has seriously violated the basic rules of the game of golf, which has brought severe negative publicity.”
Zhang is listed as having been disqualified in each event’s official scoring.
The China Golf Association release was translated for ESPN by Zing J. Paul, a Chinese lecturer at the University of Florida.
The release said Zhang was suspended from PGA Tour China events for six months, from September 15, 2014, through March 14, 2015.
Zhang, 27, won the Beijing Open earlier this year on the PGA Tour China circuit. There are three events remaining on the schedule. Zhang was eligible for this week’s WGC-HSBC Championship in Shanghai prior to the suspension.
The Web.com Tour schedule has yet to be released for 2015. This year’s schedule began in February.
This article originally appeared on ESPN.com
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