Harold Varner III and an Indiana golf course are offering sharply different accounts of a dispute that ended with the LIV golfer’s group leaving early.
Harold Varner III arrived in Indiana trying to finish the LIV Golf season with a flourish. Instead, the veteran golfer suddenly found himself at the center of a bizarre golf-course controversy.
Varner and Bear Slide Golf Club are disputing what happened during a recreational round earlier in the week, with the Indiana course saying Varner's party repeatedly attempted to play as a six-some before ultimately being told to leave.
Varner says that's not what happened.
According to Bear Slide's public account, Varner originally booked a foursome before arriving with six players. The club says it accommodated the larger party by allowing them to split into two groups of three.
That's apparently where the disagreement began.
The course maintains Varner's group repeatedly requested permission to play together as six, something staff wouldn't allow. Bear Slide alleges the two threesomes eventually combined around the fourth hole and that staff observed all six golfers playing the hole together.
At that point, the course had seen enough.
Bear Slide says the golfers were instructed to return their carts, leave the course and receive refunds. The club also pushed back against claims that nobody was playing behind Varner's group, maintaining there were multiple groups following them.
Then Varner fired back.
In a statement posted to his Instagram story, Varner disputed several elements of the course's version. He explained that the six players were attempting a three-on-three scramble, with the first threesome waiting near the green to watch the second group hit its approach shots.
Varner maintains they never actually played as a sixsome and says there weren't golfers waiting behind them.
He also disputed the characterization that he personally was thrown off the course.
According to Varner, the message was delivered to members of the other threesome, and once everyone understood the course wanted them gone, the entire party left without creating another confrontation.
So we're left with two dramatically different versions of one unusual afternoon.
The timing certainly isn't ideal for Varner.
He's competing in LIV Golf's season finale at The Club at Chatham Hills outside Indianapolis.
Varner entered the final round tied for 16th, four shots off the lead, while sitting ninth in LIV's season-long individual standings.
Instead of focusing exclusively on his finish, Varner now has a decidedly different golf story following him.
And unlike a leaderboard, this one doesn't have an undisputed scorecard.
