[ad_1]
Russell Henley’s ball on 16 discovered an enormous divot.
Getty Pictures/CBS Sports activities
Profitable a golf match is absolutely onerous. Russell Henley and Lucas Glover reminded us all Sunday it takes getting some breaks to go the appropriate method too.
The pair had been locked in a battle for the Wyndham Championship when play was suspended simply earlier than 5 p.m., tied at 20 underneath. When play resumed greater than two hours later, Henley grabbed the higher hand with a birdie on the par-5 fifteenth.
Then he got here to the 167-yard par-3 sixteenth.
Rewind a number of hours, earlier than the climate delay when Justin Thomas was taking part in the identical gap, combating for his playoff life after making eagle at 15.
Thomas hit a knockdown draw with a brief iron, however he instantly knew he had an issue.
“Go! Go! Go!” Thomas shouted as his method began falling again right down to earth. With a again pin, his tee shot landed simply previous the entrance fringe of the inexperienced, not far sufficient to outlive the inexperienced’s false entrance.
His ball rolled all the way in which again to the other facet of the inexperienced’s method and settled into the primary reduce of tough, narrowly avoiding divots of gamers saddled with the identical destiny earlier than him. The outcome was a bogey that in the end proved expensive for Thomas as he completed one shot wanting the playoffs.
However that was solely an indication of issues to come back for the later teams.
2023 Wyndham Championship purse: Payout information, winner’s share
Practically three hours later, holding the solo lead, Henley stepped up on 16 and hit an identical shot. As a substitute of drawing again towards the pin, Henley’s ball was unnoticed to dry proper and he spun his membership in a single hand in frustration.
Henley’s ball really landed deeper into the inexperienced however it ripped again towards the entrance and simply trickled over the slope. However simply because it started to settle, some 30 yards from the outlet, it took a dive towards a divot and stopped in it.
This wasn’t any atypical divot, nonetheless. This was a crater.
From there, Henley might solely chop out to the entrance of the inexperienced and two-putt for bogey.
“16, to come back again right into a divot, that’s a fairly robust break,” Henley mentioned afterward.
His luck received no higher on the following gap as he blew his drive method proper and needed to punch out right into a slope of tough in the course of the seventeenth fairway. Whereas he wasn’t in a divot this time, his lie was so unhealthy he known as an official to aim to get aid for an embedded ball. The CBS broadcast confirmed it had bounced first.
This time, Henley’s hack couldn’t even attain the entrance of the inexperienced and he made one other bogey to fall out of the lead solely.
Lucas Glover will get emotional Wyndham Championship win as Russell Henley falters late
One other bogey on the house gap and Henley went from the driving force’s seat to letting Glover coast to victory in a matter of half-hour.
“17, I simply hit a horrible shot and 18 was simply not ok to make a par,” he mentioned.
On the flip facet, Glover received all of the fortune Henley didn’t. On 18, the 43-year-old snap-hooked his tee shot towards the pine straw on the left, close to the place Justin Thomas performed his second shot from earlier.
As a substitute of skipping into the pine straw, his ball bounced off a police cart and again towards the green.
From there he laid up and made par to shut out the two-shot win.
“I didn’t know that [my ball had hit the cart],” Glover mentioned. “I assumed anyone was joking, I heard them say that.”
It was no joke and neither was the luck that helped Glover and sunk Henley.
[ad_2]