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Challenge Tour player DQ’d for running out of balls

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Already headed toward an early exit at this week’s Challenge Tour event, Clément Berardo expedited his departure when he was disqualified for running out of golf balls.

Playing Thursday in the opening round of the Andalucia-Costa del Sol Match Play 9, Berardo was forced out of the event after losing his final ball on the 16th hole of the Valle Romano course in Spain.

It’d been a rough round for the 32-year-old Frenchman, who was 10 over par at the time of his disqualification. He began the day with a quadruple-bogey 9 on the first hole, then bogeyed the sixth and eight holes to make the turn in 6-over 41. It got worse from there, after he double-bogeyed the 10th hole and dropped shots on the 14th and 15th. On the par-5 16th, Berardo apparently lost the final ball in his bag and embarrassingly had to head back to the clubhouse.

Ranked 1,909th in the world, Berardo had missed his last four cuts on the European Tour’s developmental circuit.