An ugly reminder
Worse shots easier to recall than good ones, say players
PEBBLE BEACH (California): As powerful as positive thinking can be at the highest level of golf, even the best have a tendency to recall the worst.
Justin Thomas didn’t hesitate when asked for the worst shot he ever hit. It also was fairly recent.
“The first shot I hit in the playoffs last year,” Thomas said.
“That was the worst shot I ever hit in my life, hands down.”
In his first appearance since winning the PGA Championship, he hit a duck-hook that barely went more than 200 yards when it clanged out of the trees and into the fairway. Most players had a wedge to the green at Glen Oaks. Thomas had to smoke a 2-iron and somehow managed to make par.
That was televised. Still fresh in his mind was a shot from college when Alabama played at Isleworth.
“I get the chunks sometimes,” Thomas said. “I hit a drive in college, a drop-kick off the toe on No. 8. I’ll never forget it.
“I was talking to one of our assistant coaches. I was trying to decide if I could carry it 305 to 310 yards over a bunker because we had a helping wind. I took a huge divot. It landed like 15 yards in front of me and rolled down the hill. The coach looked over at me and was laughing. I said, ‘ Coach, did that cover the bunker?”’
Dustin Johnson also went back to college.
“For some reason ... I won the tournament, but we were at Duke in college. It was the Duke Invitational,” Johnson said. “I was in the right side of the fairway at No. 1 after making the turn, and I hit a 5-iron into the trees.”
Does he remember his good shots as easily?
“Probably not,” Johnson said. “But I’ve hit a lot of good ones.”
Jordan Spieth didn’t have to think hard when asked his worst shot of last year. He had a five-shot lead at the Northern Trust last year when he hit 8-iron into the water on the par-3 sixth.
He wound up losing in a playoff to Johnson.
Was it a bad shot or bad timing? It only missed clearing the water by about a foot.
“It was a situation where I hit a club that was way too aggressive when I could have taken more and just faded it in,” Spieth said.
“When I look back at last year, if I want one mulligan, that was my mulligan from last year.”
So the tee shot on the 13th hole at Royal Birkdale, so far right that he took a penalty drop on the prac- tice range, maybe wasn’t all that bad. Spieth laughed at the memory, pointing out (again) that there was water on the face of his driver, and it hit a spectator that sent it even farther to the right.
“It wasn’t THAT bad,” he said. He said he had forgotten about the tee shot at the British Open when asked for his worst shot of last year, and then explained why.
“I’ll never take back a shot at a tournament I won,” he said.