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It may have escaped your notice but I do have something in common with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Like them, I have walked from the 16th green to the 17th tee at TPC Sawgrass. They did it with real enthusiasm. I resembled a man being hauled to the gallows.
Like them I selected a club, pushed a tee into the ground and rested a ball on it. Like them, I stared long and hard at the green in the distance and the shimmering water in between.
Then came the thoughts:
“It's only 120 yards from this tee.
“There is no wind.
“Where’s the alligator?
“Keep your head down.
“Slow your swing down.
“How do I stop my knees wobbling and my legs shaking?
“Take a deep breath.”
And finally: “Oh shit.”
Welcome to the most-talked-about par-3 in golf, one that attracted praise and criticism at last week’s Players Championship as it always does. The hole with the near-island green from which a journalist crouching down to line up a putt once toppled backwards into the lake. The hole where Bob Tway took a 12 in 2005 and Russell Knox a 9 in 2009. The hole where it is estimated 125,000 golf balls end in the water in a calendar year. The hole where the average score by the pros at the Players is always over par.
Some players loved it and some hated it. They all feared it. “Waking in the morning and knowing I am playing the 17th in the afternoon is like waking in the morning knowing you’re having root canal work in the afternoon,” Darren Clarke said. “Actually, it’s not. It’s worse.”
Bobby Jones said: “The difference between a sand trap and water is the difference between a car crash and an airline crash. You have a chance of recovering from a car crash.” For the best players that is undoubtedly true. For me though, on this day years ago, I hadn’t played very well up to then and things weren’t about to improve.
I did better than the man who took 66 on that hole and said, “It would have been a 65 but I three-putted.” And I outscored Tway and Knox.
But I, too, ended in the water, played from the drop zone and holed out for a 7. You didn’t really think anything else did you?
SPLASH!
John Hopkins
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