Oak Hill Country Club has proven to be a difficult test for the world’s best players in the 105th PGA Championship.
Scorecards are filling with bogeys and even many double-bogeys and worse. Pros are cursing like Andrew Dice Clay. And players have been forced to get creative with their shotmaking.
Among the battle-tested is Gary Woodland, who during the second round Friday found himself in a deep greenside bunker on the bruising 6th hole. With the ball in a horrid spot — just a couple inches from edge of the bunker — Woodland had little room to operate with a wedge. So instead he pulled out a hybrid (or perhaps a fairway wood) and decided to…putt, knocking his ball about 10 feet into a more manageable lie in the bunker.
Now that’s something you don’t see everyday…but, wait, it gets even better.
After making the bold decision to basically sacrifice a stroke, Woodland did the unthinkable and holed his next bunker shot to save par. Just take a look at the video below to see the entire series of events.
No pictures on the scorecard, but what a highlight from @GaryWoodland 🙌 pic.twitter.com/TQiKHoD8Sz
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 20, 2023
Remember the old PGA Tour tagline, “These guys can good“? Woodland epitomized that on Friday, doing something that most amateurs wouldn’t even think about trying.
More impressive still, Woodland’s wizardry came on what during the second round played as the hardest hole in PGA Championship history. The cumulative score-to-par for the field on Thursday and Friday? A whopping 180 over.
Alas, Woodland’s par save at the 6th couldn’t save his week. He shot 73-75 to miss the five-over cut by three.