Danny Lee has hit disaster on his PGA Tour return, making a quintuple bogey eight during his second round at The American Express in California.
Having roared home with four straight birdies during his opening-round seven-under at the Nicklaus Tournament Course which had him in an eight-way tie for fifth, Lee started on the back nine of the Pete Dye Stadium Course on Saturday (NZ time) in solid fashion. Ridiculously, he had even eagled the very hole before his calamity to get within two shots of the lead.
But at the par-three 17th things took an almighty turn for the worse.
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Danny Lee had a disaster in his second round at The American Express PGA Tour event, hitting a quintuple bogey.
Unable to fade his tee shot as he had wanted, Lee’s ball bounced off rocks and all the way across the water and off more rocks to then lie just centimetres away from the out-of-bounds area.
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The 31-year-old could not make the most of his slice of luck, though, as he then dunked his second shot into the drink, conceding a penalty stroke.
He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, of course, and he duly hit his next time well over the water. Only this time it bounced near the back of the green to then roll onto the rocks behind.
That meant another penalty drop and so it was third time lucky from his same spot, as Lee proceeded to bounce his next closer to the front of the green for it to roll to the back and lie around 14 feet from the hole.
His long putt missed, but left with a 20-inch attempt, he duly tapped in, and then, understandably never wanting to see the thing again, nonchalantly under-armed his ball into the water.
The debacle didn’t seem to affect Lee, though, as he managed to find three more birdies on his way to an even-par 72.
He lies at seven-under overall at the halfway stage, in a 10-way share of 47th, seven strokes behind leader Patrick Cantlay, of the United States. The cut at this event comes after the third round.
Lee was at least in good company to have struggled on the Pete Dye Stadium Course, though, with Phil Mickelson having also made a quintuple bogey – a nine on the par-four eighth during his first-round 78. The American great sits at seven-over at second-to-last (155th) in the field.
Meanwhile, Steve Alker remains right in the hunt going into the third and final round of the PGA Tour Champions season-opener in Hawaii.
The 50-year-old, who took the tour by storm in the back half of last year, had started the Mitsubishi Electric Championship with a six-under 66 to sit in a four-way tie for third, and he backed that up with another blemish-free 67 to be at 11-under, in a five-way share of fourth, now just one stroke off the pace, set by Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Stephen Ames.
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