Ben DeArmond, a South Florida PGA Professional golfer, was among the field at a Web.com Tour event that kicked off yesterday. The SFPGA was excited for him, and tweeted their encouragement before he teed off:
That optimism didn’t do DeArmond much good, though. On his second hole of the day, a 491-yard par 4 with a water hazard, DeArmond managed to shoot a 17. Seventeen!
You are surely wondering how the hell DeArmond managed to do that. The answer is that had something of a Tin Cup-style meltdown from both the rough and the tee box. After hitting his tee shot into the water, DeArmond tried to clear the hazard from the rough two times but failed. Then he went back to the tee box and hit another shot into the water. After two more failed attempts to clear the water from the rough, he finally got his ball into the fairway.
DeArmond told the AP that he’s never shot a 17 in all his years of playing golf. He seemed to be handling the disaster well, though, sharing that he got made fun of by his own dad:
“My own dad called me Roy a couple of holes later, so he referenced Roy McAvoy,” said DeArmond, referring to the character in the movie “Tin Cup” played by Kevin Costner who repeatedly hit into the water on the final hole of the U.S. Open. “I couldn’t get it up in the air even with a 5-iron, so I’m not used to that. Just went a little numb. But we got through it, had a good back nine. So I’ll be back tomorrow.”
DeArmond now owns the highest recorded single-hole score in Web.com Tour history, just edging out Greg Eason’s 15, which he carded in 2017.