Ouch…talk about lashes in the public square, PGA Tour player Kevin Na carded a ghastly 16 at the par-4 9th hole at TPC San Antonio during the first round of the Texas Open.
Hitting three from the tee – he lost the first drive right…in perdition, declaring it unplayable – he drove the ball in roughly the same place and tried to hack his way out of the jungle and gunch back to the fairway. What’s the worst that could happen, right?
He could hit a tree and have the ball come back and hit him for an additional two stroke penalty!
Now hitting seven, and still deep in the uncharted backwaters of greater San Antone, he took seven more strokes to get back to the fairway.
After putting out, head spinning, he turned to his caddie and said, “I think I made somewhere between 10 and 15.”
Try 16, Kevin. Oh well, it made his first round 80 look respectable!
It was the worst score on a par-4 in PGA Tour history. The worst score on any hole is John Daly’s well-documented 18 at Bay Hill in 1998 when he had a “Tin Cup moment” and took an 18 after rinsing half a dozen balls trying to cary the lake. Ray Ainsley, (who? Exactly!). had a 19 on the par-4 16th hole at Cherry HIlls in the 1938 U.S. Open.
