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VIRGINIA WATER, England (AP) - English golfer Simon Dyson has been handed a suspended two-month ban from the European Tour and fined $49,000 after his rules violation at the BMW Masters in Shanghai in October.
Dyson attended a hearing Thursday where he was found guilty of a serious breach of the tour's code of behavior for using his ball to press down a spike mark on the green in direct line of his short par putt.
His ban will become effective only if he commits another rules breach in the next 18 months.
A disciplinary panel of the European Tour found that Dyson's actions were deliberate but that it was "not a premeditated act of cheating." It also took Dyson's previous good conduct on tour into account.
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