The lefty putted, and his group worked nearly as hard as he had as his ball crept toward the cup.
“I like this. I like this,” one man said.
“That is good, Doug,” another said. “That’s going in.”
“It might,” another said.
“Come on. Come on,” another said.
Then all at once, as the 20-footer was now inches away:
“Gooooooo!”
The Iron Man Tournament at Gilbert Plains Country Club was up to its old tricks. Each year, to end its season, the track in Manitoba, Canada, backs up its tees, speeds up its greens and drops its holes in near-unmakeable locations, then charges 200 bucks per scramble foursome and watches each team burn. It’s not unlike other such “superintendent revenge” days, though Gilbert Plains’ outdoes himself.
“A week before, I might trim the fringe shorter like the green would be to get more roll off the greens,” Donnie Senyk told the Brandon Sun last year.
“Number 16, probably our signature one, I put it right on the edge and she’s up on a hill. If you miss the pin, she’ll probably roll three quarters of the way down the hill, at least 20 yards.”
It’s here where our lefty and his group were.
In the now-viral video shared by Manitoba head cover manufacturer KNG Golf, and in one of the wildest putts you’ll ever see, the ball inched forward, then picked up speed as it headed toward the cup cut on the front-right edge of the green. About an inch from dropping, the ball instead darted to the right, rolled down a slope and, as Senyk said, finished about 20 yards away.
“What, what, what, what, whaaaattt, what,” one man shouted.
“There’s no chance,” another said.
A year ago, the KNG Golf crew shared a similar video, where a man, about 6 feet above the same hole location, putted, then chased after his ball after it missed down the hill. This year, they’d share a second video, this one shot by a nearby Gilbert Plains worker.
The Ironman being a scramble, the lefty’s group weren’t left to just his miss. Another lefty would putt, wait about 10 seconds and raise his putter to shouts of: “It’s in!”
An Iron Man birdie.
