We all hit bad shots!

My friend and I ended up playing the last seven holes on Thursday night in the illustrious company of the Captain and the immediate Past Captain.  It was kind of them to wait for us coming off the 11th green…especially as it was teeming!  The craic was good and as we were heading down Donnelly’s the Sun came out and the rain stopped.  The golf was pretty good actually, although there was the odd wayward shot. That got me talking about a video compilation I’d seen just before the Masters, which included some horrendous drives and pitches by the top pros on tour.  It included Bryson DeChambeau’s horror drive at the 10th hole at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play which only travelled 46 yards!  Here’s a quick clip of that:

We all hit poor shots – some of us more frequently than others – and we often beat ourselves up when we duff a drive or miss a putt, however any good golf book will tell you to forget about that bad shot and start focusing on your next one.   Often only a few centimetres (or inches for those still using imperial units) can make the difference between the perfect shot and a disaster –

• landing on the edge of the 9th green or landing in the pond,
• hitting the flagstick and dropping into the hole or running on past and de-greening,
• rolling into the cup or horse-shoeing out,
• pitching onto the edge of the 17th green and running towards the flag or landing a centimetre short and rolling back down into one of the bunkers.

I couldn’t locate the compilation of disasters that I was talking about, but I in my search I came across the “Golf is hard” series of videos produced by the PGA.  So, if you want to see the professionals having the same bad luck as everyone else, watch this video.