We’ve no doubt all experienced them, and maybe several times in a bad round round – the dreaded air shot. After all, it even happens to pros from time to time.
However, you would probably need to go some distance to beat the number of attempts one player needed to get his ball away from a tricky lie near a bunker. Unfortunately for him, it was captured on video, too!
Poor guy 😯🙈pic.twitter.com/RhDHuRtPHYMarch 28, 2023
Everything seems to start confidently enough for the player, as he takes a reasonably assured practice swing and gets a good look at the flag on the nearby green. After steadying himself, he opts for a suitably gentle backswing, surely with the intention of elegantly chipping the ball towards the hole.
That’s not quite what happens. Instead, on his downswing, his club makes a divot behind the ball, missing it completely. He then proceeds to find the same spot with his next three attempts, all with the ball remaining completely undisturbed!
A fifth attempt sees an improvement, but not by a lot. This time, after almost inevitably landing his club face in the now-familiar divot, the ball at least moves, albeit by just a couple of inches.
No doubt encouraged, the hapless player, now with cheering in the background, opts for a quick change of feet position before taking another go at it – or four.
After creating another divot with his sixth and seventh efforts, the eighth marks genuine progress as the ball moves a couple of rotations. Finally, his ninth shot makes a reasonable enough contact to get the ball close, but not quite close enough, to the green. Still, at least getting the putter out would be justified at that point.
Sadly, the video ends before we find out how he got on with the task of putting the ball, but before it cuts off, there is one clue as to why he may have struggled so much. As the player leaves the bunker and reaches for his clubs, there’s a sizeable wobble before he steadies himself, suggesting he was quite "relaxed" during the round... or "absolutely steaming" as one reply to the video put it.
Absolutely steaming 😂😂March 28, 2023
With that mystery apparently cleared up it does beg one question, though: if he was that unsteady, how many shots did it take him to get that close to the green in the first place?
