Guido Migliozzi moved his right hand to the right, then to the left. Then he flipped it up slightly. Migliozzi was doing the math here as he limped off the green, and he was going to need his left hand.
The 17th at Gary Player Country Club was that kind of hole for Migliozzi. He had started the 478-yard par-4 on Saturday tied for third and two shots out of the lead during the rain-delayed second round of the DP World Tour’s’ Nedbank Golf Challenge. He left it tied for 27th and eight back.
Sextuple-bogey 10s will do that to you.
“Never nice to see this,” an announcer said on the Golf Channel broadcast. “We’ve all done it. Everyone who’s played the game has done things like this.”
Indeed. As we count ’em all up, you may also feel sympathetic. He did one-putt from 2 feet, though, and if Migliozzi were feeling spicy, and an observer were to spicily ask, “How did you make a 10,” he could spicily answer with the classic: “With a one-putt from 2 feet.”
Stroke one was a 313-yard tee shot into the right fairway bunker, and stroke two was an 84-yard shot that he hit to lay up short of the water that runs along the left side of the hole. Stroke three was a fat wedge. His ball was now both in a marsh in a penalty area and feet in front of a stone wall that protects the front of the green.
Should he have hit his second farther back to give him a fuller club into the green? Maybe.
“It’s easy to sit here and criticize,” the announcer said on the broadcast. “I believe the second shot was the problem. If you’re not going to go for the green and you’re going to lay up, play it to a position to where you can almost play a full shot.”
Stroke four, after Migliozzi moved some rocks out of the way, was a chunk, and he was now only closer to the stone wall. He had caught more grass and water than ball.
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“From bad to worse down there,” another announcer said on the broadcast. “What’s he going to do now?
“He just decelled on that,” another announcer said. “Got to make sure you get out of that, the little area there down in the penalty area. He’s almost falling over. What now?”
A penalty drop, and he backed himself up about 25 yards through back-on-the-line relief.
Then Migliozzi chunked his sixth stroke. He dropped his wedge.
“Oh, he’s chunked it again,” an announcer said on the broadcast. “Oh, he’s chunked it again. He’s having more hits than the Beatles down here.”
Stroke seven was again short of the wall.
Stroke eight, hit seconds after seven, was chunked too, but Migliozzi was out. And stroke nine was the chip to 2 feet.
“Wow, this is sad,” an announcer said on the broadcast. “This is what can happen on this golf course. It can grab you if you’re not careful.”
“No matter who you are, your heart rate is just slowly rising,” another announcer said.
“Well, you lose your train of thought,” another said.
But his hand tally was right.
