Chopping Wood

Every once in a while it is refreshing to see the greatest players in the world have a brain freeze. You never want to see anything like Rory McIlroy's Sunday back 9 at the Masters while leading the tournament, but a disaster on Thursday at a run-of-the-mill PGA event can be fun, especially when the golfer laughs about it as well. On Thursday, Kevin Na, one of the young, exciting Americans had one of those brain freezes (see video).

Na was playing the Valero Texas Open at the TPC course in San Antonio, Texas. Na was even par through 8 holes when he came to the par-4 9th hole. He hit his first drive into the woods and had an unplayable lie so he went back to the tee and hit his third shot in almost exactly the same place. He decided to try to punch the ball out of the trees and his ball hit a tree and ricocheted back and hit him on the leg for a two-stroke penalty so he way now lying 6. He dropped his ball and hit a tree again. He then tried to punch the ball out of the woods left-handed and whiffed and then hit the ball twice more a couple of feet. It looked like he might be able to get out of the woods, but his next shot hit a tree and bounced further into the woods. Finally, after two more swings he was out of the woods and into the rough. His approach shot trickled onto the fringe of the green and his next putt singed the edge of the cup and he made the 5 footer for a 16!

Although Na was frustrated while tramping through the woods, when he finally made it out of the woods, he was able to smile and joke about trying to figure out his score. His caddie was much more stoic than Kevin. Unbelievably, Na was able to compartmentalize the 9th hole and he shot a 4 under par 32 on the back 9 for an 8 0ver par 80 (with 16 strokes on one par-4 hole!). And I am gloating about my 79 on a muni course.

By the way, talking about mental toughness, Rory McIlroy fired a 64 today and is leading the Malaysian Open at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club.