Arnold Palmer would likely sympathize. Bob Murphy, too. And J.T. Poston. And Kevin Streelman. And Martin Laird. And seemingly countless others. Even Tip O’Neil, the former speaker of the House. All once stood where William Mouw stood Friday, and all collapsed like Mouw collapsed. He wasn’t alone. His misery had company.
We’re trying for positives here.
Because the negatives were numerous. Thirteen strokes, if you’re counting. Then six more.
“Oh my goodness,” an announcer on the PGA Tour Live broadcast said at one point. “What is happening?”
In a sentence, the bunker to the left of the 16th hole on the Pete Dye Stadium Course happened. Its wall is 18-feet high. It blocks more shots than Shaq or Dikembe. You want to avoid it. But after two shots on Friday, Mouw found himself in front of it, about 25 yards from the hole, during the second round of the American Express tournament. And then? Whew, boy.
— On stroke three, Mouw rocketed his ball over the green.
Said an announcer on PGA Tour Live: “Oh, that was way too clean. Easy to do.”
— On stroke four, from dormant grass, Mouw pitched his ball back over the green — and back into the bunker.
Said an announcer: “Oh my goodness. What is happening?”
— On stroke five, Mouw’s ball missed clearing the bunker by about five feet — and it trickled back down. That was his second bunker shot.
Said analyst Johnson Wagner on the Golf Channel broadcast: “I mean, there’s not more you can do other than chuckle at yourself.” Notably, in a spot for the network this week, Wagner played a shot from the bunker — and skulled one out.
— On stroke six, Mouw’s ball missed clearing by about two feet — and it again trickled back down. That was his third bunker shot.
Said Wagner: “Oh boy.”
Said announcer Steve Sands: “Did he do it again? He did. Oh my goodness.”
— On stroke seven, Mouw cleared the bunker — but again his ball sailed over the green. That was his fourth bunker shot.
Said an announcer on PGA Tour Live: “Oh my gosh.”
— On stroke eight, from right of the green again, from dormant grass again, Mouw chipped his ball into a small embankment in front of the green — and his ball rolled across the putting surface and back into the bunker.
Said an announcer on PGA Tour Live as his ball rolled: “Settle, settle, settle, settle, settle.”
Said another announcer: “Oh my goodness.”
— On stroke nine, from the bunker for a fifth time, Mouw played his ball to the right of the wall and back into the fairway. The mistakes appeared to be over.
— They weren’t. One stroke 10, Mouw seemingly miscalculated how firm the green was, hit his ball about five feet short of the flag — and his ball rolled over the green.
Said a PGA Tour Live announcer: “What are you doing? Mouw, what are you doing?”
— Stroke 11 was a pitch back on.
Stroke 12 was a putt.
Stroke 13 was his last of the hole.
The tally? An octuple bogey on the par-5. He’d taken five shots from the hellish bunker. He’d started the hole at six-under for the tournament, and he left it at two-over. He finished the round at five-over. He started the day tied for 46th and ended it in 106th.
But there was more.
On the hole after 16, the island-green, par-3 17th, Mouw dumped his first two shots in the water, before finishing with a triple-bogey six.
Others have hit in the drink, too, though.
