Talk about burning some cash
Imagine dropping $750,000 on a single golf hole. Heck, I’d be a
little bummed losing a $2 dollar bet on the 18th at Bolado Park.
But that’s the amount of cash that Sean O’ Hair lost at the 17th
hole in last Sunday’s final round at the Players Championship.
Talk about burning some cash
Imagine dropping $750,000 on a single golf hole. Heck, I’d be a little bummed losing a $2 dollar bet on the 18th at Bolado Park. But that’s the amount of cash that Sean O’ Hair lost at the 17th hole in last Sunday’s final round at the Players Championship.
Although he’s only 24 and has plenty of time to rebound, O’Hair will never forget those back-to-back shots that landed in the water on the famous par-3 signature hole of the Pete-Dye designed course – two shots that transformed a simple 3 into a gut-wrenching 7.
A par on the 135-year hole and the young golfer from Texas would still have a chance to catch Phil Mickelson on the treacherous 18th.
Instead, O’ Hair’s faux pas drops him from second place to 11th in one of the biggest tournaments of the year, a tournament that is often considered golf’s fifth major.
After witnessing the shot, I couldn’t help but think of some of the other infamous moments in golf that have occurred over the years.
O’ Hair’s shot brought back memories of Tom Weiskopf’s 13 at the par-3 12th hole at Augusta in the 1980 Masters. It also reminded me of Jean Van De Velde’s triple-bogey 7 on the 72nd hole of the 1999 British Open that ultimately lost the Frenchman the tournament.
The weird thing is that I could sense that it was going to happen even before he set up over the shot. He had the look of tenacity on his face, but it was clear that O’ Hair was going to crack under the ever-mounting pressure of the tournament. I especially knew it after Mickelson, who was first to hit, knocked his shot safely on the island green about 30 feet left of the hole.
As the camera panned to O’ Hair, I could see the look in his eyes. I said to some family members, who were visiting for Mother’s Day, that he looked so intense that he was either going to hole it or knock it in the drink. And sure enough, O’ Hair’s adrenaline got the best of him.
His shot sailed about five yards over the back of the green and landed in the water. His next shot that he hit from the drop area one-hopped its way into the water.
In the blink of an eye, a tournament win that was within his grasp – a win that could have changed O’ Hair’s life forever – was lost as Mickelson was now able to relax on the demanding 18th hole. And even after a bogey 5 on the hole Mickelson was still able to claim his 31st victory by a pair of strokes over Sergio Garcia.
I guess that’s just one more tournament trophy from today’s golf era that will have the name Mickelson, Woods, Singh or Els on it just as the 1970s trophies often saw the names Nicklaus, Miller, Watson and Irwin etched on them.
Years from now no one will remember how close the talented 24-year-old from Lubbock, Texas came to etching his name on the prized trophy. Sadly, what will be forever etched in everyone’s mind will be the triple-bogey 7 that O’ Hair had to jot down on his scorecard last Sunday. His struggles at the 17th holes made the hole just a little more infamous.
This proves once again that golf truly is a game of inches, and so is the difference between winning and losing.
