Thomas Detry, left, and Stephan Jaeger on Friday on the 6th green at PGA National.
Golf Channel
Oh no.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Six no’s in all. For the six putts Thomas Detry hit Friday on the 6th green on the Champion Course at PGA National Resort, with five coming from less than 6 feet away. If you’re a golfer, you feel — all the feelings? There are mixed emotions, for sure. Pain? Yes, we don’t wish these kinds of things on anyone. Joy? You don’t want to admit it — don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone — but yeah, there’s that odd sensation that develops when someone as otherworldly talented like Detry, a pro golfer for eight years, stumbles around a green like a 25-handicap.
Maybe it’s just sympathy then, along the lines of this:
Hey, we’ve all been there, man.
And Detry was most certainly there during the Cognizant Classic’s second round, where:
— On the 461-yard, par-4 6th, he hit his second shot, from 162 yards out, to about 50 feet. He then hit putt one, his birdie attempt, to 5 feet, 10 inches, according to the PGA Tour’s online leaderboard.
— Detry hit putt two, his par attempt, to the left of the hole, and it finished about three away. Here, Golf Channel cameras were recording.
“Now keep watching here and see what happens,” announcer Steve Sands said on the broadcast. “This is a concentration issue? A four-over-par-late-on-a-Friday issue?”
— Detry took five steps to the right of the hole, stood just on his right foot and hit putt three, his bogey attempt. It lipped out on the right side of the cup and finished about a foot away.
— Detry then took three steps to the left, stood just on his right foot again and hit putt four, his double-bogey try. It lipped out to the right and finished about five feet away.
“Oh no,” said analyst and putting savante Brad Faxon on the broadcast.
— Detry then took five steps to the left, and with his right foot ahead of his left, he hit putt five, his triple-bogey attempt. It lipped out to the left and finished about 3 feet away.
“That’s not concentration,” Faxon said on the broadcast. “That’s a get-me-out-of-here.”
— Finally, Detry took two steps to the right and, standing just on his right foot again, made the putt, his sixth on the green. It gave him a quadruple-bogey eight, with six of the strokes coming on the green. From there, Detry grabbed the ball from the hole with his right hand, took three steps away from the cup — and underhand-tossed the ball into the water to the left of the green. He then took a few more steps and handed his putter to his caddie.
Whew.
There are a few more things to note.
How about the reaction of his playing partners? As Detry putted, Stephan Jaeger stood seemingly emotionless. Michael Kim, meanwhile, revealed later on Twitter that he’d been keeping Detry’s score — and he added this:
“I asked his caddy Lee what his score was on the next hole since I was keeping Thomas’s score and Lee responds “it was an 8… I think”
Also, when’s the last time a PGA Tour pro has six-putted? According to golf-stats guru Justin Ray (who you can follow on Twitter here), Detry’s effort was the first since Danny Lee’s crusade during the third round of the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.