Sometimes long is wrong, as Bryson DeChambeau found out Friday in the second round of the Memorial. And sometimes Kraken stays too long in the water.
But it’s not that often that PGA Tour pros make a quintuple bogey.
The long hitter was 1 over par for the tournament and safely inside the cut line on the tee of the par-5 15th at Muirfield Village, but he pumped his tee shot into a hazard on the left 279 yards away. After a drop in the rough and a penalty shot, he had 289 yards to the hole.
Things didn’t get any better. His third shot went out of bounds near a fence to the right of the fairway, so he dropped again with another penalty shot. (More on that ball later.)
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Now hitting his fifth shot, he again lost a ball with a wayward swing. Another drop in the rough, another penalty. It was the second time the PGA Tour’s scoreboard tracker used that most unfortunate of phrases: “to unknown.”
Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy – “Give me another ball!” – would be able to commiserate.
Now hitting seven, he had 259 yards to the hole, and he missed the green to the right.
He finally got his eighth shot onto the green, 29 feet from the hole. Two putts later, he had a quintuple-bogey 10 to fall to 6 over par and outside the cut line.
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For those counting, that was three drops and three penalty shots on No. 15. Ouch.
But DeChambeau didn’t go quietly. After finding one of his lost balls beneath a metal fence, DeChambeau disagreed with a rules official that the ball was out of bounds. As is his right, he asked for a second opinion. But that ruling didn’t go any better for DeChambeau, and he stomped off unhappily after the ruling.
To his credit, DeChambeau kept swinging and went on to birdie No. 18, but he finished the day with a 76 and was 5 over for the two rounds. The six-time PGA Tour winner, who most recently won the Rocket Mortgage Classic two weeks ago, declined to comment after the round.
Sometimes golf is hard, even when you can hit it 350 yards in the air.
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