2 hours ago
4
Former major winner John Daly had a really, really bad time on one particular hole during a PGA Tour Champions event.
Daly, who won the PGA Championship and The Open Championship in his career, teed off for the first round of the Sanford International at Minnehaha Country Club in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The 59-year-old was four-over for his round when he approached the par-5 12th hole on the course.
It took him 19 strokes to finish.
Hole 12 features a long creek running along the left side of the fairway, with players forced to hit over the water to reach the green.
After hitting his tee shot into the rough, Daly hit not one, not two, not three - but SEVEN shots in a row out-of-bounds.
John Daly needed an astounding 19 strokes to finish hole 12 at the Sanford International
It's the highest single-hole score of Daly's career and dropped him to 18-over for the event
That included not only shots hit into the water, but also shots hit into the wooded area to the left of the hole.
Once he finally managed to get his ball on the green, Daly sank his first putt to cap off a wild 19-stroke up-and-down.
The tetradeca-bogey is believed to be the highest single-hole score of Daly's playing career, according to NBC Sports.
If this score was carded on the main PGA Tour, it would go down in history tied for the second-highest score on a single hole.
Daly would be tied with Hans Merrell - a 'simple golf instructor', according to GolfWeek, who took 19 strokes to finish the 16th hole at Cypress Point Golf Club during the 1959 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am (nowadays known as the Pebble Beach Pro-Am).
But there's a fact beyond that. If Daly did shoot this on the PGA Tour, it would be his FOURTH appearance on the list of worst single-hole scores.
Daly holds the third spot all by himself by needing 18 strokes on the 6th hole at the 1998 Bay Hill Invitational (now the Arnold Palmer Invitational). He also is tied for seventh (14 strokes at the 2000 US Open on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach) and is also tied for eighth (13 strokes on the 4th hole of the 2011 John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run).
However, the worst single-hole score in PGA Tour history belongs to Tommy Armour. In the same year that the three-time major winner took the 1927 US Open at Oakmont, the Scotsman took an appalling 23 strokes and hit 10 shots out of bounds on the 17th hole of the Shawnee Open.
Back to Daly, his day finished at 18-over par with 88 strokes needed to finish the round. He goes into Saturday's second round 24 shots off the lead.
