You have to forgive some fans
Tiger Woods’ lost golf ball at the Wells Fargo Championship last weekend gave Meg Mallon occasion to recall the bizarre circumstances in the first round of the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open.
She was playing the 421-yard fourth hole at The Orchards in the opening round when she pulled her tee shot toward a food compound. When she arrived to where her ball should have been, it wasn’t there. Marshals didn’t know what happened.
“I said, ‘What you do mean you don’t know where the ball is?’ ” Mallon said Tuesday.
Her first thought was to go back to the tee, but she called for a rules official when someone in the gallery said someone picked up the ball. The official arrived, talked to people in the gallery and concluded that must have been the case.
“They gave me a drop, I had to pitch out to the fairway, and I hit 7-iron to a foot for my par,” Mallon said.
Three days later, Mallon closed with a 65 for a two-shot victory over Annika Sorenstam.
Unlike with Woods’ ball, there was chatter after Mallon’s drop about the missing ball and someone confessed.
“After I hit the shot, a woman heard everyone talking and realized she had done it,” Mallon said. “She came up to me and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I was getting something to eat, when I looked down and there was a golf ball, so I picked it up.’
“She was a nun, and she was honest.”