Professional golfer Michael Sims had to disqualify himself from the Green Mountain National Open on Saturday after making an error on his scorecard in the third and final round, writes Gayle Alleyne.

Competing in the New England Pro Tour event in Killington, Vermont, he only realised his mistake after he had signed the scorecard and turned it in. However, he drew the situation to the attention of tournament organisers and duly disqualified himself as required.

"He was mad at himself for making that mistake and it was unfortunate that it happened but we told him to take the lesson from it and look at it in that positive light," said Sims' father Bruce yesterday.

Sims shot 73 and 71 in the tournament's first two rounds and made the cut for the final round on which the mishap occurred. In that round, his score was 76 and had he not made the error he would have finished with a score of 220 which would have made him joint 32nd out the 41 golfers completing the event.

"He wasn't in the hunt. It would have been doubly bad if that had been the case," said his dad.

Ben Portie of Colorado won the tournament by one shot from Geoffrey Sisk of Massachusetts, scoring a total of 205 to 206. The winner earned $10,000 while the runner-up took home $5,675.

Sims, suffering from a touch of tendinitis in his right wrist, is slated to compete in next week's Massachusetts Open.