{"id":526029,"date":"2026-03-16T01:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T01:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/526029\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T01:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T01:55:08","slug":"pros-nightmare-lie-at-players-championship-left-him-with-big-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/526029\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro’s nightmare lie at Players Championship left him with big decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chad Ramey hit a shot in the final round of the Players Championship<\/a> that you don\u2019t see every day: a 7-iron from 183 yards on the Stadium Course\u2019s par-3 13th that landed softly on the left side of the green, caught a slope and didn\u2019t stop rolling until it had disappeared into the hole.<\/p>\n

An ace.<\/p>\n

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Ramey\u2019s first in competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t get any putts to fall, so to not have to putt, that was nice,\u201d Ramey joked after signing for a one-under 71 that moved him to three under for the week and likely with a top-30 finish in what is his fourth Players appearance.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, though, the 1 wasn\u2019t Ramey\u2019s most unusual shot of the day.<\/p>\n

That came on another par-3 \u2014\u00a0the island-green 17th<\/a> \u2014\u00a0where Ramey\u2019s tee shot rolled through the back of the green and clung to the strip of rough that separates the putting surface from the wood plank that rings the green. But his ball didn\u2019t cling for long. A moment or two after it came to rest in the rough, it dislodged itself and dropped down to the plank. The ball seemed destined for the water, but instead of bounding forward, it spun backward and stopped hard against the turf line, leaving Ramey with a chip shot you wouldn\u2019t wish on your worst enemy.<\/p>\n

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Ramey has a history at 17<\/a>. In the second round of the 2023 Players, he arrived on this hole with the lead. But then disaster struck. Tee shot. Kerplunk. Third shot from the drop zone. Kerplunk. He eventually holed out for a quadruple-bogey 7, surrendered the lead and shot 75. On Sunday, he finished T27.<\/p>\n

On this Sunday, if Ramey didn\u2019t want to play his second from the plank, he had the option of taking a penalty stroke and playing his third shot from the drop zone<\/a>. But, with the hole cut on the lower tier on the far right side of the green, Ramey wanted no part of a drop. \u201cWhere that pin is,\u201d he said later, \u201c[the drop zone] is not where you want to be. So I just kind of weighed the odds and we determined it was worth taking the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad Faxon, calling the action on the NBC telecast, said he\u2019d never seen a player face this particular predicament on 17. <\/p>\n

With one foot in the rough and another on the plank, Ramey drew back what looked to be a lob wedge and drove the club into his ball. The high-wire act paid off. Ramey\u2019s ball popped up and advanced about five yards onto the green, from where Ramey two-putted for an adventurous bogey.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRight before I hit it, I was just like, please, just get the ball on the green,\u201d Ramey said after the round. \u201cIt couldn\u2019t have worked more perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Faxon reviewed a replay of the shot on the telecast, he said, \u201cYou could hear [his club] hit the wood first. He almost hit it off the toe like he was trying to take the bounce away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether he\u2019d ever practiced such a shot, Ramey responded with a single syllable.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Pro\u2019s nightmare lie at Players Championship left him with big decision<\/a> appeared first on Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chad Ramey hit a shot in the final round of the Players Championship that you don\u2019t see every…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[29448,427,166830,99],"class_list":["post-526029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-chad-ramey","tag-golf","tag-players-championship","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}