If you are curious, yes, it is possible to miss a 2 inch putt. Major brain fart today at my monthly Harding Park tournament, where there are no gimmes. Got off to a slow start but things got rolling on the 4th hole when I got up and down for par on the difficult, 1-handicap par 5. After a decent drive, hooked my 8-iron on the short par 4 5th but made a nice little pitch to about 3.5-4 feet. Over read the down slope, kind of babied the putt and it came up about an inch or two short.
So upset with myself I quickly walked up to tap it in with the back of my putter. But I was so amped up I basically jammed the ball completely over the cup, leaving myself with a 2-3 footer coming back. My playing partners when silent. I kind of froze for a second in shock, then proceeded to make my double bogey.
I tweeted that it was all downhill after that but in hindsight it wasn't. It was actually the 8th that was my undoing. I missed right on the relatively long par 3 and with the pin tucked way right and the green sloping away I needed to play a Mickelson flop to have a chance to save par. After a par on 7 I needed another par here to keep the momentum going and have any hopes of winning net, so I went with the risky flop instead of the routine pitch, 2-putt bogey.
My flop came up maybe 6 inches short. Another 6 inches the ball would have taken one/two hops on the fringe and rolled to probably 3-4 feet. But it didn't. It's now sitting down in the rough. 6 damn inches. Instead of focusing on saving bogey I'm just completely out of it now. After that, it was all downhill.
Hate to admit it, but I'm mentally weak. From the stupid tap in debacle to not refocusing after catching a bad break I can't play "one shot at a time." I'm still thinking about how my chip on the 3rd hole should have gone in instead of concentrating on the chip I have now. If only I could clone myself to be my caddie. Looking back at my rounds there are just so many non-execution mistakes. All avoidable if I was just more level headed, more mentally focused.
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