A top Scottish amateur golfer has been banned from tournaments for five years after he admitted dropping a ball and pretending he had already hit it off the tee.

Craig Surgeon, a member of Kingsknowe Golf Club in Edinburgh, was disqualified for breaking the rules at the Lothians Amateur Championship in July.

The misdemeanour on the 18th hole at Turnhouse, the 129-year-old course, was witnessed and a spokesperson for the Lothians Golf Association (LGA) confirmed to The Scotsman that after arriving home Surgeon made contact with the club and disqualified himself after admitting to dropping a ball on the final hole of his second round.

If a golfer believes after playing a shot that the ball could be lost, they are allowed to play a provisional and, if the initial ball is indeed lost, then play the second and add a penalty shot to their score.

However, if they do not play a provisional they must return to where the last shot was taken and accept the stroke and distance penalty. It is one of the best-known and widely-used rules in the game.

Surgeon, a scratch handicapper who had previously represented the Lothian region, also confessed on social media. “It was me,” he said in reply to a post about the incident.

“I DQ’d [disqualified] myself and I have owned up and am facing the consequences. Everyone knows, it’s no secret. Again to everyone I am sorry and it’s something I’ve got to live with moving forward.”

On Monday the LGA released a statement to The Scotsman which read: “Following an incident that occurred during the qualifying rounds of the Lothians Amateur Championship in July, the Association investigated one player’s actions.

“Subsequently, a player has been suspended from entering all Lothians Golf Association events for a period of five years, with the last three years suspended.

“The Association feels its actions are justified, prioritising the integrity of golf. The player and his club have now been informed and the Association now considers the matter closed.”

The scandal is the second high-profile cheating storm to erupt in amateur golf this year after a similar incident in the United States. Last month, Zach Holland – a skilled amateur who plays off a handicap of two – admitted to staging a bogus hole in one during a tournament at WingHaven Country Club in Missouri.

Holland celebrated the apparent feat at the fourth hole in footage that quickly went viral on social media. The American had told his three playing partners that after putting out on the third hole, he needed to take an urgent phone call as his grandmother had suffered a fall.

He would instead go ahead and tee off on the fourth and meet the others on the green. Holland claimed he had “thinned” his tee shot and said he had no idea where his ball ended up, but his partners discovered the ball in the hole and celebrated what they thought was a legitimate hole in one.

But suspicious club staff checked CCTV footage and found Holland had attended the green before the start of his round to place a ball in the cup.

He later apologised and resigned his WingHaven Country Club membership, admitting “there’s no excuse for what I did and I was completely in the wrong”.