A golfer who failed to qualify for...

A golfer who failed to qualify for a tournament after interrupting her round to save a drowning child will be allowed to enter the tournament through an unprecedented exemption, the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. announced.

Mary Bea Porter, 38, was lining up her shot on the 13th fairway Wednesday when she saw 3-year-old Jonathon Smucker face down in a swimming pool in a yard bordering the Moon Valley Country Club course in Phoenix.

Porter jumped the fence to help the boy’s father, who had pulled the boy out, and gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A spokesman for the Phoenix Fire Department said she saved the boy’s life.

Porter returned to the Phoenix golf course after the rescue but finished three strokes short of qualifying for the Standard Register Turquoise tournament next week at Phoenix.

Players had petitioned LPGA Commissioner John D. Laupheimer to let Porter play although she had failed to qualify. Laupheimer said he took their sentiments into account but had already decided to find some way to recognize her “exemplary heroism.”