Pro melts down after a four-putt costs him the lead at Pebble Beach

Nate Lashley rolled in the 3-foot putt on the 16th at Pebble Beach, then took both hands and flipped his putter head-over-head into the sky. He picked his ball from the cup. Lashley then took three steps and slammed the head of his putter into the green. His putter was up. His putter was down. Just like his tournament in a three-minute span.

“Errrrgh,” he shouted.

“Ugh,” analyst Frank Nobilo said on CBS’ broadcast of Sunday’s final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. 

Lashley had entered the 399-yard, par-4 16th tied for the lead. Seven shots and four putts later, he was tied for fifth, three strokes back with two holes to go. 

Errrrgh.

Ugh. 

Lashley had hit his tee shot 248 yards down the right side of the fairway, pushed his approach just long and then chipped on to 13 feet. Those three shots were one more than he’d take with his putter.

On his first putt, Lashley missed just right of the hole. Moments later, from three feet away, his putt grazed the left edge of the cup and jumped out. Lashley flipped his putter into the air for the first time. “You got to be kidding me,” he said. 

“It’s even hard to watch from the vantage point,” on-course analyst Dottie Pepper said on the broadcast. 

“You can get kicked in the teeth in this game,” Nobilo said. 

For his third putt, from two feet away, Lashley missed on the same side of the hole. He slowly circled around the cup toward his ball and tapped in for a four-putt and a triple bogey.

As he walked off the green, Lashley stopped, took one last look at the green and tossed his hands in the air. He would finish with a birdie on 18 to tie for fifth.

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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