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Pro Golfer's Brutal Debacle Leads to Worst Single-Hole Score in Tour's History

By Ross Kelly February 15, 2019 at 12:09pm

During the first round of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Open, the weather was so brutal that anyone who teed off in the morning had their scores wiped out and they started from scratch later in the day.

If only Ben DeArmond had been playing on that tour, instead of the Web.com Tour on Thursday at Lakewood National Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.

DeArmond participated in the Web.com Tour event LECOM Challenge on a sponsor’s exemption, and to put it mildly, things didn’t go as planned.

All golfers look to make history whenever they step on the course, but unfortunately for DeArmond, he made the wrong kind of history with the worst single-hole score ever recorded on the Web.com Tour.

DeArmond shot a 17 on the 491-yard, par-4 second hole. There’s no video of the event, but screenshots of the Web.com app show a score that sticks out like a sore thumb.

And you thought you were having a bad day at work pic.twitter.com/cReumjw5s8

— Tim Bowers (@TimBowers62) February 14, 2019

According to Jay Huffman of SaberSim, the previous highest score for a shot on the Web.com Tour was a 15 by Greg Eason.

How exactly does it take 17 shots for a golf pro to find the hole? Well, according to the play-by-play of DeArmond’s shots, it took him 13 shots just to find the fairway.

Would you have been able to finish the round after shooting a 17 on the second hole?

Ben DeArmond’s 2nd hole of the @WebDotComTour event pic.twitter.com/HZdwuHvPIK

— Tim Bowers (@TimBowers62) February 14, 2019

There was water on one side of the hole and woods were on the other side. DeArmond managed to find both during the course of play as he hit six shots out of play.

But he finished up like a boss. Once he reached the green, after 16 shots, he only needed one putt to card his 17.

“I’ve learned nerves are a real thing,” DeArmond told USA Today. “I had a great range session, felt good going in, and it was just an out-of-body experience on that hole.”

He did manage to finish the round and shot a 91 on the par-72 course. Almost needless to say, his score of +19 had him last in the field.

But finishing the round is a success in its own right, especially when you remember it was just the second hole where disaster struck. DeArmond chalked the experience up as a life lesson and vowed to return on Friday.

“If you learn anything from me today, it’s don’t withdraw, don’t give up, have fun with it,” DeArmond said. “It’s a game. Everybody has a bad day, a bad hole — even the worst hole of your life. So you have to move on.

“We got through it, had a good back nine,” he added. “So I’ll be back tomorrow.”

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