On Saturday at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, Tony Finau was working his way into contention. But then disaster struck when he made a late and devastating 4-putt that featured a miss from just 3 inches.
Finau’s short miss
The incident occurred on Memorial Park’s par-3 15th hole in Round 3. At that point, Finau had traded two birdies for two bogeys to remain at five under for the tournament.
A string of birdies to close out his round would put him in contention for his first win of the season on Sunday. And while he did get that string of red numbers, he proceeded it with a car crash of a putting performance at 15.
Finau’s tee shot on the 122-yard hole ended up on the back of the green, just 41 feet from the cup. While birdie seemed unlikely, a routine two-putt par would keep his hopes alive as he moved onto the final three holes.
The six-time PGA Tour winner’s first putt was not ideal, but it left him only 3 feet, 8 inches to secure his par. However, as the ESPN+ crew noted, it didn’t go well.
“Big Tone pulled it, and it breaks left…”
Finau’s putt nipped the left side of the hole and spun 3 inches past. But it got worse from there. As the announcer was still talking, Finau walked up to his ball and attempted to tap it in from the opposite side of the cup. But he duffed it, and his ball stopped 1 inch short.
“Oh! And he missed that!” the ESPN+ play-by-play man continued in shock.
Finau then successfully tapped in his fourth putt for a painful double-bogey 5.
While he managed to get both of those shots back by making birdie on his next two holes, 16 and 17, Finau finished at even par for the day, leaving him 12 shots behind leader Min Woo Lee and with zero hope for a seventh PGA Tour victory on Sunday.
How often PGA Tour pros miss short putts
Finau’s 4-putt seems even worse when we look at how PGA Tour pros typically perform on short putts.
So far this season, the Tour average for putts made from 3 feet is 99.54%. Incredibly, 70 players have made every single 3-footer they’ve faced in 2025. Finau’s make percentage from that distance, 99.57%, is slightly higher than the average Tour pro. But it was 100% before Saturday.
The Tour average drops to 81.2% from 5 feet, though four players still have a perfect 100% make percentage from 5 feet at this point in the season. Finau, however, is below average from that distance, making putts from that distance just 73.33% of the time, which is T146 on Tour.
The stats look uglier for Finau when we look at the total 4-putts made on Tour this season. His 4-putt on Saturday was only the 19th 4-putt among all players in 2025. Only two players have more than one 4-putt, which surprisingly includes World No. 5 Ludvig Aberg (2).
