Nightmare Hole

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.oneasia.asia/news/tournament-news/847-stoic-walters-endures-nightmare-hole.html

Stoic Walters Endures Nightmare Hole
TIANJIN, China, May 3 - South African Justin Walters could be forgiven for wanting to borrow a bulldozer the title sponsors are giving away as a hole-in-one prize at this week's Volvo China Open and using it to dig up the par-five 12th at Tianjin Binhai Lake Golf Club after scoring a combined 19 shots at the hole over the first two rounds.

Walters took ten shots to hole out on Thursday -- although he later recovered with five birdies on the trot to finish level par -- but took nine strokes at the same hole on Friday for a second round 76 and missed the cut by four.

Amazingly, he nearly reached the green both times with his second shot, was never out-of-bounds, and none of the strokes were penalties.

After Thursday's effort, when he played the back nine first, Walters had this to say:

"It was a horrible hole to go through because I actually hit two great shots to get to that point and so to walk off with a ten was pretty demoralising -- especially knowing how hard the course was ahead of me.

"I was approximately 30 feet from the hole for two shots and I had a big bank in front of me and I just mishit the first one -- I tried to use a hybrid -- and it got to the top and then it rolled all the way down.

"Then I hit it again and I actually hit a bump, and caught the slope left, and it went with the slope and rolled down further left.

"Then I put the hybrid away and got the putter out and I hit it up to the top. It actually got to the top and I was walking up there, but there was a gust of wind or something and it blew back down the hill.

"Then I hit another one up the top which I thought was actually ok, but it did the same thing and came down."

Walters finally got onto a level surface with his seventh, but, frustrated, three putted.

"That was probably the worst part about the whole thing," he said, "it should have been a nine!"

Astonishingly, Walters went through the same process on Friday -- his second shot landing in almost the same place, and then watching in horror as his ball rolled up and down the slope.

Still, he was determined to main philosophical about the experience.

"This game is crazy and half the time we don't know why we do it," he sighed.

"It asks the question 'how much substance do you have?' If you can come back from it, then the rewards on the other side are usually better."

[Bill Seitz]

As someone who six-putted the first hole of the club championship at Kingsley last year, I can commiserate.  It's a bit frustrating to land an approach shot within a foot of a spot that would have kicked it to about 2 feet from hole and walk off with a 9.

[Bill_McBride]

The definition of insanity?

[JMEvensky]

The definition of insanity?

Eh,what did Einstein know?

[Mark McKeever]

Sounds like John Daly at Pinehurst.

Mark

[Tim Gavrich]

In a high school match my freshman year. We played Hotchkiss's golf course. It was an 18-hole match, so we went around twice. My two times around the 9th hole, I made an 11 and a 9. I shot 84 on the day. Four over par the other 16 holes.

[Matthew Rose]

I made two 10s in competition. One at Blackhawk CC in Madison and one at Sun Prairie CC.

The second one was particularly jarring, because I was two holes away from shooting my best competitive round and my whole golf season pretty much unraveled afterward. At that time I'd only broken 80 once.

I was a senior, I was playing in the last varsity slot despite having the best scoring average... we were playing against Sun Prairie High School and I was two pars away from a 78.

Instead, I hooked two into a cornfield, topped my 5th shot into a creek that was about 100 yards off the tee, dropped and played 7 into the fairway, hit my 8th on the green and two-putted for the 10. Then I doubled the 18th and ended up with 86.

Later that week, I was forced to play off for the last varsity spot for two upcoming big events. I was really angry about it, and of course played badly and ended up losing my slot to a freshman. That weekend was the Ashenfelter, which is a huge high school event in southern Wisconsin that was played on my home course every year. I had to "volunteer" for the event and helped with posting scores. This freshman went out and shot 116 and my team finished second or third last in a 40 team event. I've never forgiven my high school coaches.

In retrospect, they obviously felt I did not handle pressure very well. And they were actually right. But I was still pretty livid, because I ended the year still with the lowest scoring average and had missed out on a big event.

[Jon Wiggett]

Wrong thread