‘Playing Ping-Pong’: LIV pro is 15 yards away at Open, then takes 7 shots

Tiger Woods, in offering a scouting report on Royal Troon’s famed Postage Stamp par-3, had two pieces of advice. 

Green good, he said.

And miss green bad. 

“It doesn’t get any more simple than that,” the 15-time major winner said. 

For sure. But things are easier said than swung on Troon’s 8th. (Sorry.) It stretches out to around 120 yards, but typically plays longer due to Scottish breezes. Hit its green from its elevated tee and, as Woods said, you’re dancing. But miss? It’s easy to do so, of course — the hole is named the Stamp as a nod to its green’s size; it’s not the Letter Hole or the Package Hole. If you’re left, right, long or short of it, pray for a par. Beside the left-to-right-sloping green are five bunkers. One of ’em, on the left, is even shaped like a coffin. 

Scary. 

Just ask Joaquin Niemann. The LIV Golf pro stepped to the Stamp’s tee on Friday in a tie for seventh during the Open Championship’s second round — and left it scrambling to make the weekend cut. In between was disastrous. 

A rundown:

— Stroke one dropped into the right greenside bunker. 

— Stroke two, from 15 yards away, was hit into the coffin. 

— Stroke three stayed in the coffin. 

— Stroke four was hit into the front-right bunker. 

— Stroke five was nearly hit back into the coffin. USA Network picked things up there. On the shot, Niemann’s feet were on the upslope on the back of the bunker, and his abbreviated-follow-through swing dropped the ball near the sand again. But he was safe. He was finally putting. 

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Said analyst Luke Donald: “We saw some of the struggles here yesterday with some of the guys.” 

Said announcer Dan Hicks: “Hit his tee shot in the bunker and has been playing ping-pong back and forth, which can happen.” 

— Stroke six, a putt from 26 feet away, was short.  

Said Donald on the broadcast: “The pain continues. … Amazing how one hole can really just change around your whole Open Championship.” 

Said Hicks: “In the middle of the pack as far as difficulty goes today after being one of the tougher holes yesterday.”

— Stroke seven, a putt from 5 feet away, was long and to the right. 

— Stroke eight, a putt from just over a foot away, saw a touch of frustration. Niemann took his putter back farther than he normally would, then knocked his ball in. 

That was for a quintuple-bogey eight. On the broadcast, Hicks said it was the second-highest score on the hole in the past six Opens at Troon. 

Woods was right. 

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

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.

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