Worst 72nd hole choke

[tatertot]

20 minutes ago, JRS1939 said:

I think the biggest failure with Mito was his chip!   He just needed to get up and down to go into the playoff! 

DId you see his lie?

[tatertot]

4 hours ago, NJBigFish22 said:

I’m going Phil.  Phil was doing Phil things, but he has no self control/awareness at times.  I thought Van De Velde was harder to watch.

Fortunately for me, my ABC affiliate cut away for local programming before poor Jean teed off on 18. We didn't get to see it live.

[JD3]

Sergio at Carnoustie, should have hit driver and even if he landed in rough he'd only have short iron left to green. Instead tried playing it "safe" with a pair of long irons and made bogey

[JD3]

Or Tom Watson also British Open. Only needing par on last hole, hits perfect tee shot, hits 8 iron over green. Very indifferent chip then ugly yip sets up bogey

[gvogel]

10 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

For somebody to lose a lead on the final day of a major (his first?) and for someone to lose their first lead (was it?) on a Sunday wouldn’t be a choke, just business as usual.

See: Tom Watson.

[Dave230]

How about Monty from the same tournament as Phil? Phil had a terrible hole from the start. Montgomerie was middle of the fairway with a 7 iron in. Ends up with double. It’s worse because that win would have defined his career.

 

Also if Monty pars that hole, Phil would never have been in the position he was, he would have been one shot back.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Dave230

[gvogel]

4 minutes ago, JD3 said:

Or Tom Watson also British Open. Only needing par on last hole, hits perfect tee shot, hits 8 iron over green. Very indifferent chip then ugly yip sets up bogey

I don' think that was a choke.  The ball hit short of the green and took an unexpected, big hop forward.  The ugly putt?  He was gassed.

[RSinSG]

I was hoping there was an “Other” option so I could have voted for myself.  A couple of months ago on the final hole of league championship I had a 2 stroke lead. Lost the tournament by 1 after I clanked my way to a triple. 😐

[me05501]

This may sound half-baked, but I think Mito might have been influenced by the idiot behind the tee who was yelling at all the players to HAMMER THE DRIVER!

 

He was so obnoxious over the last hour or so of the tournament. I can't imagine why he wasn't ejected (maybe was there representing a sponsor).  

 

More experienced players like JT can put that kind of stuff completely out of their minds. But if you're ranked #100 in the world, leading your first major, playing kind of shaky golf, etc, and the last thing you hear before you pull a club is HAMMER THE DRIVER you might just talk yourself into it. 

[me05501]

Just now, RSinSG said:

I was hoping there was an “Other” option so I could have voted for myself.  A couple of months ago on the final hole of league championship I had a 2 stroke lead. Lost the tournament by 1 after I clanked my way to a triple. 😐

 

I think this is really quite common. Tough situation. Good on your for getting in that position. 

[Ferguson]

1 minute ago, me05501 said:

This may sound half-baked, but I think Mito might have been influenced by the idiot behind the tee who was yelling at all the players to HAMMER THE DRIVER!

 

He was so obnoxious over the last hour or so of the tournament. I can't imagine why he wasn't ejected (maybe was there representing a sponsor).  

 

More experienced players like JT can put that kind of stuff completely out of their minds. But if you're ranked #100 in the world, leading your first major, playing kind of shaky golf, etc, and the last thing you hear before you pull a club is HAMMER THE DRIVER you might just talk yourself into it. 

 

Often times a major win is decided by one choice.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JD3]

18 minutes ago, gvogel said:

I don' think that was a choke.  The ball hit short of the green and took an unexpected, big hop forward.  The ugly putt?  He was gassed.

too gassed to putt? 🙄

[Shilgy]

4 minutes ago, Ferguson said:

 

Often times a major win is decided by one choice.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if it doesn’t work accept that the peanut gallery will tell you you should have chosen differently.  We have posts saying a player should have done option B, the safe route, and when another player chooses B and messes it up then the peanut gallery says he should have chosen A, or even C.

 

It’s golf.  Not all failures are chokes.

[Ferguson]

1 minute ago, Shilgy said:

And if it doesn’t work accept that the peanut gallery will tell you you should have chosen differently.  We have posts saying a player should have done option B, the safe route, and when another player chooses B and messes it up then the peanut gallery says he should have chosen A, or even C.

 

It’s golf.  Not all failures are chokes.

 

I totally agree.  The guy chose the wrong shot at the wrong time. 

 

 

What was the right choice? 

It doesn't matter now. 

 

 

[2putttom]

13 hours ago, mosesgolf said:

A good caddy would not let Mito hit driver on 18. 

 

yep, all he had to do was stay left of center off the tee. 90% of the drives on Sunday were left of center and had straight shot to the green. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by 2putttom

[mkuether]

The three choices are are miles apart in terms of degrees of choking.

 

Van de Velde is far and away the worst choke job, he had a three shot lead and an extremely clear path to victory both off the tee (where he could have been conservative and hit an iron and played for bogey) and also before his second short (where we could have put it back into the fairway and again played for bogey). Yes, he was incredibly unlucky that his second shot hit a railing, but he should have never, ever attempted that shot to begin with. This is likely the worst major choke job of all time. I remember watching it live and it was incredibly painful to see, one of the worst things I've witnessed in sports.

 

Phil's choke is second of these three, but nowhere near as bad as van de Velde. Phil needed par to win, so his decision to hit driver might not have been the wisest thing in the world, but it wasn't indefensible either. Phil's is more of a choke job than Mito's however, as Phil should have chipped out to the fairway after his errant drive and tried to make par from the fairway (or bogey to tie). He obviously tried a hero shot instead, and we all know how that went. Phil's was a pretty big choke all things considered, but since he did not have a clear and nearly assured path to victory before any of his shots, I think it's not nearly as bad as van de Velde.

 

Mito probably should have played a different shot in retrospect, but I think his is more a case simply hitting a bad shot at the wrong time rather than enormous strategic errors coupled with bad shots like van de Velde and Phil made. I think even if Mito recovered and made bogey he was definitely not going to be the favorite in the aggregate playoff anyway.

[Rodmike10]

14 hours ago, mosesgolf said:

A good caddy would not let Mito hit driver on 18. 

 

Couldn’t agree more.

[tiderider]

13 hours ago, f123acez said:

Can’t be mito.. he was a nobody prior to this week. Wasn’t expected. Phil was a total meltdown

that's what i think ... phil was a seasoned veteran at that point, and had won big tournaments ... complete melt on his part, starting with the driver ... 

[MaineMariner]

The common denominator of the worst, most memorable chokes are the bafflingly bad choices that the golfers make. It's one thing to totally flub a chip or even shank an iron, but it's another when the choke happens between the ears.

 

Phil's and Van de Velde's bad decisions are well-documented. For Mito, to the outside observer his real bad choice was to abandon his regular swing to hit some sort of odd, sawed off squeeze cut thing. To change your swing on the 72nd hole of the tournament looked bizarre and the result was expectedly terrible.

 

But who knows, maybe that's a shot that Mito feels extremely comfortable hitting. Maybe 9 out of 10 times that swing translates into exactly the result he was seeking. It's easy for the outside observer to say "just hit a 3 wood, dummy", but maybe he's more comfortable hitting a knock down driver?

 

Well, presumably he WAS more comfortable playing that shot. Not sure if he ever will be again.

[King_Slender]

VadeVelde and it's not even close.  He made bad decisions the entire time.

 

Shot 1 - Hit driver way right and lucky to not end up in the burn.

Shot 2 - Could have hit wedge, wedge, 3 putt, but instead hit 2 iron that clanked off the stands.  Bad luck, but avoidable.

Shot 3 - Could have wedged sideways into the fairway, 4 on, 2 putt to win.  Tried to clear the burn and ended up in the burn. 

 

I put Phil second - a bad drive is a bad drive, but should have wedged his second shot back in play with a chance to get up and down.  

 

Mito hit a bad shot, but the decision to hit driver is debatable. Still with a 1 shot lead, it was the one thing he couldn't do and shouldn't have his a club that could get to the water. 

[billyspan]

I remember Andres Romero blowing the '07 British, finishing double, bogey and missing the Garcia Harrington playoff by one shot.  I think a lot of players bogeyed or doubled 18 that year as well. 

 

[Christosterone]

Sam Snead had a few US Open collapses…

1947 he was up 2 shots with 3 to play in the playoff…

Left a 13 footer 30 inches short to win the tournament…then missed the 30” putt to extend the playoff and lost the tournament. .

[Shilgy]

39 minutes ago, King_Slender said:

VadeVelde and it's not even close.  He made bad decisions the entire time.

 

Shot 1 - Hit driver way right and lucky to not end up in the burn.

Shot 2 - Could have hit wedge, wedge, 3 putt, but instead hit 2 iron that clanked off the stands.  Bad luck, but avoidable.

Shot 3 - Could have wedged sideways into the fairway, 4 on, 2 putt to win.  Tried to clear the burn and ended up in the burn. 

 

I put Phil second - a bad drive is a bad drive, but should have wedged his second shot back in play with a chance to get up and down.  

 

Mito hit a bad shot, but the decision to hit driver is debatable. Still with a 1 shot lead, it was the one thing he couldn't do and shouldn't have his a club that could get to the water. 

Can possibly agree with shot 1….not the rest.  Once the drive was okay he had a clean lie for the approach.  The ONLY good play was to clear the burn.  Do that and the job was 99% done.  Which he did but the ball hit the railing post and bounce backwards into the burn.

What many seem to forget is that all of the players agreed it was an almost impossible layup.  The fairway was so narrow and the rough so penal that if the lay up was in the rough it was not guaranteed to g

et the next over the green…and so on with each shot.

He hit the shot he needed to and succeeded…except the post.

 

And yes…it was painful to watch.

[MtlJeff]

3 hours ago, Shilgy said:

And if it doesn’t work accept that the peanut gallery will tell you you should have chosen differently.  We have posts saying a player should have done option B, the safe route, and when another player chooses B and messes it up then the peanut gallery says he should have chosen A, or even C.

 

It’s golf.  Not all failures are chokes.

 

exactly....Sergio played #18 at Carnoustie with a 1-shot lead the way everyone wanted Mito to play 18 yesterday. 2 iron, 4 iron. I mean don't want to pull a Van De Velde and drive into the water for a massive choke job. So he played safe, then hit his 215yd approach into a greenside bunker and made a 5, then lost in the playoff to Harrington. Turns out hitting the green from like 215 isn't super easy either with a major on the line

 

I have a crazy fact for people here, turns out 490yd uphill holes with a difficult green are actually pretty hard! There was an article thursday night talking about how brutal this hole was. Guys posting like hitting a 200-225yd uphill shot to a crazy green is some sort of layup to an easy par. Like , really? It's just a really hard hole, i'm guessing it played closer to 5 than 4 on average for the field

[ChrisL52188]

Phil Mickelson... And I enjoyed watching him play for a long time. 

 

Where was Bones that day? 

[ChrisL52188]

3 hours ago, Dave230 said:

How about Monty from the same tournament as Phil? Phil had a terrible hole from the start. Montgomerie was middle of the fairway with a 7 iron in. Ends up with double. It’s worse because that win would have defined his career.

 

Also if Monty pars that hole, Phil would never have been in the position he was, he would have been one shot back.

I have to agree. Monty was with his bread and butter club and he just flat out hit it fat. And I don't think Phil would have changed his strategy anyway. 

[ChrisL52188]

Here's another choke... Greg Norman 1986 Masters Final hole. 

[Blaiser]

The shot tracer and replays I saw didn't show Mito's shot. Did it bounce off that slope in the fairway to ricochet into the creek? Or was it way right and was unavoidable into the creek?

 

While you hate to see it, I don't think Mito's 72nd hole should even be in the conversation. It's a really hard hole. 

 

JT also hit driver, and sent it well right of his target line. In fact, JT sorta got lucky that he hit it so far right the ball landed in the flat to give him a straight forward bounce. Couple yards left and that balls ricochets into the water and this thread is about him.

 

It's just a tough hole.

[aenemated]

3 minutes ago, Blaiser said:

The shot tracer and replays I saw didn't show Mito's shot. Did it bounce off that slope in the fairway to ricochet into the creek? Or was it way right and was unavoidable into the creek?

 

While you hate to see it, I don't think Mito's 72nd hole should even be in the conversation. It's a really hard hole. 

 

It *IS* a hard hole but it's worth mentioning how absolutely horrific Mito's swing was. Before it even showed where the ball was going I was like "WTF just happened?" 

 

 

[Neo1]

18 is a long tough hole, he could've laid back off the tee but it would've meant a long iron approach...not what you want when trying to make par. it was the swing that was the problem not the club