Graeme McDowell, after doing the almost unimaginable, thought of the benefits.
His young son is picking up golf, after all.
“If my little boy is watching at home, that is exactly what I’m telling you not to do,” McDowell said on TV. “Look at Dad. He won’t do it for a while.”
“You’ll be getting a phone call,” announcer Arlo White said.
“Yes, correct,” McDowell said. “Definitely. I’ll have to talk him through that one later.”
Indeed.
To begin, McDowell is playing LIV Golf’s Greenbrier this event, and through 14 holes and about three-quarters of the 15th, he was playing well. The 2010 U.S. Open winner was five under and putting for par from about 20 feet away on the 507-yard, par-4 16th at Greenbrier (he started on the 2nd hole). He missed.
Then he missed again.
He had been about 6 inches away.
He had used just his right hand.
Notably, he hit the next putt, from about the same distance, with one hand, too.
After the bogey miss, the reaction on the CW Network broadcast was as follows:
Said White: “Oh no.”
Said analyst David Feherty: “Noooo.”
Said analyst Jerry Foltz: “Oh, no, no.”
After the double-bogey make, this was the commentary:
Said Feherty: “Oh boy. What an onion, he thinks to himself.”
Said White: “Is that just a brief lapse in concentration?”
Said Feherty: “Total.”
Said Foltz, referring to a miss at the 1983 Open Championship: “Everyone has done it. Once cost Hale Irwin a major championship.”
The story gets better, though.
McDowell bogeyed the next hole, parred his final two and signed for a two-under 68. Then he joined the broadcast booth. Then they showed 16.
And the conversation went on for nearly two minutes.
Said White: “A par save at 16.”
McDowell laughed.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s the par save we want to talk about.”
There was more laughter. McDowell continued.
“This is uh — I mean, this is just butchered. That is, you know, that is clumsy. It’s funny, you know, my 5-year-old boy is learning to play golf and I preach to him all the time to take his time on those little tap-ins. And what do I do? And I mean, it probably leads to that swing on 17 [where he hit his second shot into bushes to the right of the green]. It unsettled me a little bit. It kind of compounded an error and I get into the 17th fairway and I’m just a little anxious and I’m really fighting and I kind of underneath shot a little bit. That hurt. It was a tough kind of way to finish what was a great day. I got myself in nice position. Had three great looks at it on 13, 14, 15 for birdie, couldn’t get one to fall and then, like I say, that little tap-in on — it’s not even a tap-in. I mean …”
Said Feherty: “Misread. It happens to the best of us.”
Said McDowell: “I nearly feel — I’m apologizing to the caddie. It’s just — it’s unforgivable. And, you know, it’s one of those, every five years you miss one of those. That’ll be the last one of those I’ll miss in five years. It’s just clumsy and, like I say, kind of unsettled me a little bit.”
McDowell then had the word for his son.
