At the Players Championship, Adam Hadwin had a terrible finish to his first round after hitting his approach into the water on the eighteenth hole, and his club soon followed.
On the last hole of his opening round at the Players Championship on Thursday, PGA Tour player Adam Hadwin unleashed a furious outburst, sending his club flying into a lake.
Hadwin had an uneventful front nine until he turned around and made three birdies in seven holes to get to level-par with two holes remaining. Then, he found himself on the renowned 17th tee. Similar to many others before him, Hadwin sank his tee shot into the water after missing the green short.
Then came a penalty shot, and he proceeded to undo all of his hard work on the back nine with a double bogey. Regretfully, the Canadian’s problems regarding the Sawgrass water hazards were far from resolved.
At the last hole of the day, he almost lost his tee shot, but luckily his ball grabbed in the rough on the left side, finishing only a few feet from the danger. Hadwin got the break, but his second shot was over-hooked and went into the water instead of the green, so he was unable to capitalize.
The PGA Tour player, not too pleased with his error, decided to take it out on his club instead, tossing it far into the water and walking up to the green. He then dropped three-over-par in the opening round, but he recovered to get up and down and limit the damage to a bogey.
There is still some uncertainty surrounding the penalties for club throwing on the PGA Tour, and it is unknown if Hadwin will be punished by the authorities for his behavior. Four-time major winner Rory McIlroy is one man who has been disciplined for club throwing on the PGA Tour in the past.
Similar to Hadwin, McIlroy let out his frustrations at the WGC-Cadillac Championship in 2015 by misfiring on his shot and sending a three iron into a water hazard. At the time, McIlroy said, “I just let frustration get the better of me.”
Since I wouldn’t have needed a three-iron for the remainder of the round, I decided to go ahead and take a chance despite the heat of the moment. That wasn’t one of my proudest moments, looking back.
Later on, it came to light that McIlroy had received a £20,000 ($25,000) fine. Luckily for McIlroy, this was later lowered to £4,000 ($5k) following an apology from the European star for his club-throwing antics on live television. Hadwin needs to put on a strong performance on Friday in order to make it to the weekend, so he will be hoping to avoid receiving a similar punishment at TPC Sawgrass in addition to finding some form in round two.
Leave a Reply