He hit a shot so bad, it missed a lake. He’s still in second place
Nick Dunlap of the United States walks off the seventh tee during the third round of the FedEx St.
Jude Championship at TPC Southwind on August 17, 2024 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Nick Dunlap missed a lake entirely with his tee shot on No. 12.
PGA Tour/Getty Images
A year ago, Nick Dunlap was putting on a clinic by winning the U.S. Amateur over Neal Shipley at Cherry Hills.
Saturday at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Dunlap hit a shot so bad, it missed a lake to the right of the par-4 12th entirely.
Normally, that wouldn’t suggest a positive trend for a golfer, but that couldn’t be further from the truth for Dunlap and how he played the 12th hole was evidence of it.
Dunlap knew his tee shot on the 388-yard par-4 was no good even before his eyes came up to see where it was headed. He immediately dropped the club as his eyes confirmed what the strike of the ball told him.
He snapped his right wrist in frustration.
“I almost missed the ball completely on the tee,” Dunlap said after his round. “My right hand slipped off the club a little bit, and I thought it was out of bounds.”
It somehow wasn’t. In fact, Dunlap’s ball was in a place he admitted he didn’t even know existed at TPC Southwind. The ball completely cleared the lake that runs along the short dogleg right and made it dry land, even unbeknownst to the spectators watching from the bank.
The lake was more than 60 yards wide. Dunlap missed his target by nearly 80 yards.
“I didn’t even know there was grass over there, to be honest with you. I thought it was houses,” he said.
Dunlap’s tee shot was so bad that it was good, but that didn’t mean he got out of the situation scot-free. The 20-year-old, who turned pro in January after becoming the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour in more than three decades, still had to navigate a second shot back over the lake, around a tree and a hospitality tent to reach the green.
After taking relief from the hospitality tent — where NBC Analyst Smylie Kaufman chose to call the shot from — Dunlap, fortunately, got to move his ball left, back toward the water, but away from the overhanging tree branches.
The next issue was getting a yardage. There were no sprinkler heads on the other side of the lake and walking back to the other side would take too much time. That led to a bizarre sequence with Dunlap’s caddie, Hunter Hamrick, shouting across the lake to playing partner Scottie Scheffler’s caddie, Ted Scott, to ask Scott to read off the sprinkler heads to them. Scott obliged and that’s kosher to do under the rules, but rarely seen on Tour.
Finally, with his feet well below the ball and standing over the penalty area line on the bank of the lake, Dunlap smacked a wedge out over the water, only this one wasn’t going as intended either.
