Doris Chen’s golf journey began with her mother, Yuh-Guey Lin, who took up the game when Chen was about 10. Her daughter soon followed her onto the course, and what started as a shared interest grew into junior tournaments and eventually a move to a golf academy in Florida. By 2018, Chen was a 25-year-old professional and a former NCAA champion, with her mother still closely involved in her career. But that relationship came under scrutiny at the LPGA’s Q-Series, where an incident ended Chen’s week in controversy.

The incident took place at the LPGA’s Q-Series in November 2018, the final stage of qualifying for the tour. Chen was disqualified in the seventh round after playing a ball that, according to the LPGA, an outside agency had moved from out of bounds back into play. Sources told Golf Channel and Golfweek that the person responsible was her mother.

The following morning, Chen addressed the controversy. As reported by Golf Digest’s Ryan Herrington, she said:

“I was not trying to cheat and I am not a cheater.”

To understand what was at stake, it helps to know how the Q-Series worked. The event was introduced that year, replacing the old final stage of LPGA Q-School. Held over two weeks at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, it featured eight rounds and 102 players, with no cut along the way. Only the top 45 and ties would earn LPGA Tour cards for 2019.

Chen was running out of time to secure one of those cards. After six rounds, she sat tied for 74th at 14 over par, six shots outside the qualifying places. She had earned her spot at Pinehurst after finishing tied for 24th at Stage II, but her professional career had been a difficult one so far. Across three seasons on the Symetra Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit, she had earned just $12,050. That included only $643 from a single cut in 12 starts during the 2018 season.

The 17th Hole at Pinehurst No. 7

The trouble took place on Friday, November 2, when Chen’s drive on the 17th hole sailed left and finished out of bounds. Under the rules, she should have taken a penalty stroke and played another shot from the tee. But when she reached the ball, it was sitting in bounds.

That raised an immediate question: how had the ball ended up there?

A homeowner near the hole had seen someone move it and described the woman to LPGA officials. According to an LPGA source who spoke to Golf Channel, officials identified her as Chen’s mother, Lin.

Chen played the ball from its new position, but the LPGA said both she and her caddie knew it had been moved. That made it a wrong ball under Rule 15-3b. In stroke play, the violation carried a two-stroke penalty, and Chen was required to correct the mistake before playing from the next tee. She did not, and the resulting rules breach led to her disqualification.

Chen, however, gave a different account of the incident to Golf Channel. She said she, her caddie, and a volunteer were searching for the ball when a spectator found it near a tree. A homeowner then told her that someone had kicked the ball into a worse lie, she said, but did not mention that it had originally gone out of bounds.

With her group under time pressure, Chen said she believed she had to play the ball as it lay. She also said she had placed her mother farther up the hole. Looking back on the incident, Chen later acknowledged on Twitter that she should have called a rules official.

Her caddie, Alex Valer, remembered things differently. It was his first event working with Chen, and he said Lin was the one who announced that the ball had been found. A homeowner then ran out of a house and pointed at Lin, accusing her of kicking the ball.

Valer said he urged Chen to call a rules official and warned her that signing her scorecard could lead to disqualification. According to him, Chen declined. He also said she later asked him to keep the details quiet, although he answered the officials’ questions when they approached him. As reported by Golf Channel’s Randall Mell, Valer said:

“Doris did the wrong thing.”

The LPGA, meanwhile, stood by its decision. Its rules committee said the facts were not in doubt and that any further discussions would remain between the tour and Chen.

Where Chen’s Golf Began

The controversy was a striking turn in a career that had begun with her mother’s encouragement. Born in the U.S. but raised in Taiwan, Chen once told the ANNIKA Foundation that Lin had spotted a poster for a junior tournament at a driving range and decided to enter her daughter. Chen won that first event, shooting 124 in an age group that included just three other girls.

Her early success encouraged her to take the game further. When Chen asked to train at IMG Academy in Florida, however, the move came with its own challenges. She had to relearn English, while her mother left her job to join her in the U.S. The sacrifice eventually paid off.

Chen won the 2010 U.S. Girls’ Junior before helping USC claim the 2013 NCAA team title. A year later, she added the individual NCAA championship at Tulsa Country Club, establishing herself as one of the promising players in college golf.

But the transition to the professional game proved much harder. Injuries from her college years continued to trouble her, and although she moved back to Taiwan to compete in Asia in 2019, even her best season as a professional came with discomfort. Eventually, Chen decided to step away from golf for a while.