For a 20 handicapper, the twelfth tee at Murifield Village presents an absolutely terrifying challenge. Inspired by Augusta National’s famous par-3 12th, the green has an incredibly narrow landing area with bunkers in front and behind. It stretches 184 meters for professionals, much longer than the twelfth of Augusta, and instead of a stream that crosses the front, there is a huge lake ready to swallow any poor shot. Again, for a 20 handicapper, you might as well take your five and go to 13 tees.
But for the best players in the world, guys like Paul Casey, it’s a smooth eight or nine iron. Birdie is fantastic, but there is nothing wrong with three. However, a bad tee shot or a poor bunker shot could lead to a large number very quickly.
This is what happened to Casey on Friday, who played the hole 20 as a handicapper despite being the number 25 player in the world. His hit on the tee found the rear bunker, leaving a simple up and down par. But Casey hit his second back on the water, kicking off the shame on the bridge on the other side. Unfortunately, there are no videos, but the new Tourcast technology has still given us a detailed look at this disaster:
After that, Casey threw not one, but two shots into the water. When he fell again, he was hitting his seventh, which, surprisingly, he put 10 inches and cleaned up his eight. These guys are still good, even when they’re doing a terrible quintuple bogey:
Yikes. He looks like a John Madden telestrator. Incredibly, Casey came back with the birds at 14 and 15, which brought him back to four for the week. There is a way to go to Friday’s second round, but for now the cut is two. Given the difficulty with which the camp is taking place this week, it could stay there or switch to one. If Casey manages to collect more birds as he enters, he can sneak into the cut line despite making a snowman face.
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