Too Painful To Remember - Too Bad To Forget

[Diane]

I was reading Golf World earlier and read something about forgetting your worst shots. I'm not talking the bad everyday shot. I'm talking about the one you had nightmares about for a month. It was either when money or a tournament was on the line or so bad that your buddies are still talking about it while you cringe. Are you able to talk about that shot - can you share it with us?

 

[thedue]

There were six of us playing together during the week, one dollar a hole with pushes. I was playing great and ahead by a way's, but several of us kept pushing until the 17th was worth $5 or $6 bucks, lol. (Big money). I missed an easy 2 foot putt that gave the hole to a guy that never win's. I still cringe to this day, but I take solace in the fact that this buddy got the skins.


edit: You can be sure I still hear about it!

 

[provisional]

Although I am sure there have been more terrible shots than I care to count, it would have to be a recent one that readily comes to mind. A 516 yard par 5. I hit a great tee shot about 260. Next is a 3 wood about 220. The pin is up front, just a few feet from the front edge of the green. I had maybe 20 yards to the hole, while hitting 3 out of the green side rough. My 3rd shot was a fatty. My 4th shot was another fatty. I thinned my 5th shot across the green into a bunker. My 6th shot out of the bunker stopped 15 feet from the hole. I then needed 4 putts to hole out. A nice 10 on that hole. I took 8 touches of the ball to go the final 20 yards. Take your pick of any of those last 8 shots.

A couple of days later I eagled that same hole, when I holed out a 35 yard pitch shot.

As a rule, I usually forget my poor shots, even the really bad ones. The only reason I remembered this "10" was because of your post.

 

[Diane]

My worst involved sand. I hit out of the bunker, hit the lip and the ball hit me. I tried again and did the exact same thing. On the third try - I got out with a double-hit. I was playing with 3 men who are business associates whom I thought were going to lose it especially after my caddy commented that he had never seen anyone play the hole that way.

 

[madmike]

Any one of the severe duck-hooks with my 20* hybrid that generally costs me 2 strokes. Struck again today- and it was stupid because it was on a short, sharp dogleg left where I could have just hit a 4 or 5 iron and had about 100-120 in, instead of trying to get it to 85ish in with the hybrid.

It just strikes me out of nowhere sometimes, and I have nightmares about it for days.

 

[royalwulff]

a couple of years ago, standing on the tee box I skyed my drive straight up in the air about 100 feet. We all ducked and ran and it landed ten yards behind the tee box. I still catch grief about the longest negative drive seen.

 

[Fourputt]

I was reading Golf World earlier and read something about forgetting your worst shots. I'm not talking the bad everyday shot. I'm talking about the one you had nightmares about for a month. It was either when money or a tournament was on the line or so bad that your buddies are still talking about it while you cringe. Are you able to talk about that shot - can you share it with us?

I can only remember one bad shot... not because they are so rare, but because I hit so many bad ones that they aren't special enough to stick in my memory.

The one shot that I remember happened nearly 20 years ago. I stepped up to the 18th hole at 1 under par. That is really the only reason that I even remember it, because the shot itself was nothing special. I pull hooked the tee shot OB, ended up taking a triple on the hole for a 74.... which is a score I'm normally thrilled with, but this time all I would have needed was a bogey to shoot even par for 18 holes. The triple killed an otherwise great round, and I've still never shot par for 18 holes.

If it had happened earlier in the round, I'd likely never have remembered it. It was only the fact that it happened on the 18th hole that puts that shot tops on my short list of golf nightmares.

 

[C-Tech]

Mine involves a story required to set it up.

I held the low score at a course I used to play with some buddies before I moved away, a 77. One of these friends called and said he had shot a 76 on the course and taken my record. I told him to make a tee time for the next Saturday.

Standing on the 17th teebox, I was 2 over par for the day and obviously going to take my record back as all I had left was this little par 3 over water and a mid-length par 4. This hole had about 75 yards of heavy rough to the water downhill and then another 75 yards across the pond to the green. No problem....except there was.

I hit my tee shot so fat that I left it 5 yards short of the water in 4 inch bermuda rough. My next 2 shots found the water before I finally lofted one over and 2 putted for a 5 over 8.

To complete this, I bogeyed the last. At this point, my buddy (I use this term loosely) confessed that he really hadn't beaten my record, they just thought that would bring me back to play with them one more time. Murder/suicide came to mind as I thought about drowning my buddy and myself in the pond on 17.

 

[Diane]

C-Tech - You make things way too easy for your "friends."

 

[TC]

My awful shot occured about a year and a half ago. I was playing with a couple of guys i normally played with at the time (both of which played college golf). We were on the 12th hole, a par 5, that double doglegs (first dogleg had a creek running thu it, the 2nd you had to carry pond to an island green) and there's no way on earth you can get on in two. I'm 1 over at this point, hit 4 iron off the tee, 4 iron to about 140 out. You have to carry water on the third shot and that was fine.

The shanks set in and i hit 6 balls in a row into the pond. I did 1 putt for a 14 though. To this day, when i play that hole that always comes back into my memory. It's great when your playing partners are laughing and rolling in the fairway on ya. I couldn't help but laugh about it and we laugh about it all the time.