This is a throwback to Korean golfer S.H. Kim suffering one of the worst breaks imaginable after his approach clatters into the flag.
Kim was playing his third shot at the PGA West Stadium Course during the second round of The American Express in La Quinta, California when his accuracy was cruelly punished.
After striking the flag and bouncing away, the ball repelled all the way off the green.
It lingered on the fairway edge just short of the putting surface before rolling down the famed hill on the left side of the course. It would have ended up in the bunker but the ball got stuck beneath a rake. Kim took relief, but his fourth, fifth, and sixth strokes all ended up back in the bunker.
He was able to get his seventh shot on the green and drained it for a triple-bogey eight – double what it might have been had his approach not rebounded off the pin.
S.H. Kim has two big influences.
The 25-year-old admires the economical swings of Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy.
“I particularly like Adam Scott’s and Rory McIlroy’s swings. Lately, though, I’ve been more into Rory’s swing. He’s great at shot-shaping. He can control almost any shot he draws up in his mind,” says Kim.
“I don’t have a particular ball flight that I consider my best,” he explains. “It really depends on the situation, like being able to control the trajectory of the ball when I’m facing a hole that is uphill or downhill and shaping shots when I see a dogleg left or right. Whenever I can hit a drive exactly how I drew it up, that is my best drive.
“I don’t necessarily think about this too much, but with continuous practice it has become a natural habit.”
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