Even the best golfers in the world can have a bad swing from time to time, but seeing a miss as bad as the one suffered by Gary Woodland on Sunday at the BMW Championship is still stunning.
The miss came from the tee box of the ninth hole with Woodland just a stroke off the lead. What Woodland hoped would be a nice drive down the fairway to set up a clean second shot into the green turned into a total disaster.
Woodland topped it, the way your casual weekend duffer might do before grabbing a second ball out of his pocket and trying again. The line tracking his shot looked so awful you would be forgiven if you believed the technology was on the fritz. Even Jim Nantz, whose job it is to have something to say when a big moment happens in sports, was left struggling a bit, as there was a chance Woodland’s ball had wound up in a creek that was mostly there for show, at least when the pros were in town.
Gary Woodland tops his tee shot on No. 9 😬
“That [creek] has never been in play, any tournament they’ve ever had here.” – Jim Nantz pic.twitter.com/Y11rBi09mU
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) August 23, 2026
Indeed, Woodland was forced to take a penalty stroke on the hole and dropped his ball 350 yards from the pin. He would ultimately leave with a double bogey, losing two strokes against par.
The miss hurt in the moment and kept stinging as the day went on. With three holes left to play, Woodland was just two strokes back from the leaders, Wyndham Clark and Rory McIlroy.
About Tyler Lauletta
Tyler is a editorial contributor at Awful Announcing, with previous stops at Sports Illustrated and Business Insider during his career covering sports in digital media. He is, begrudgingly, a Truster of the Process and general Philly sports sicko.