Day three of the Houston Open provided some exceptional golf, but plenty of controversy as well.
Gary Woodland leads the Houston Open by a single stroke from Nicolai Hojgaard heading into the final round on Sunday.
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Memorial Park was gettable during moving day on Saturday, but there were also plenty of obstacles ready to trip the players up.
The golf course at the Houston Open has been in spectacular shape this week.
The pure greens and tightly mown surrounding areas provide the players with the perfect preparation for The Masters at Augusta National next week.
Photo by Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Gary Woodland is the fan favorite at the Houston Open this week, after all the problems he has endured over the past couple of years.
Sadly for the PGA Tour, though, much of the talk on day three was concerning a big controversy, rather than the spectacular standard of golf.
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Angry Golf fans react after controversy strikes at the Houston Open
Karl Vilips made a triple bogey seven on the par-four fourth hole on at Memorial Park on Saturday.
The crazy thing is that he had a 55-foot putt for birdie before he ended up making a seven!
Vilips putted off the green before chipping back over the other side of the putting surface. He then didn’t even make the green with his fifth shot before hitting his sixth to 20 feet from the pin and holing his putt for a triple bogey.
However, golf fans were not amused by the tricky pin location which caused Vilips all sorts of problems.
One fan mocked the pin location chosen by the PGA Tour on the fourth green, “The course superintendent woke up and chose violence today.“
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And many others echoed a similar sentiment.
“This is stupid. Nobody wants to see this. Use your heads,“ one fan exclaimed, while another said, “I hate pin locations like that.“
Meanwhile, another fan suggested that the PGA Tour should be embarrassed, “That’s embarrassing for the tour tbh. Great putt at the end as well btw fair play.“
And the comments kept coming…
“Whoever chose the pins for the PGA tour needs to be fired. Yes, it needs to be as difficult as possible for touring professionals, but you don’t need a circus act either,“ one golf fan fumed.
While another posted a similar message: “What kind of circus pin placement is that.“
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“This is ridiculous! That set was just to embarrass any pro. Putting the hole on top of a pyramid is stupid,“ another fan vented.
Golf fans rage at the PGA Tour
“Fire the tour staff responsible for this pin,“ one fan demanded, while another lamented the green design, “Bad design can ruin the whole vibe. Glad he salvaged a triple bogey at least.“
Another fan simply stated, “Stupid hole location.“
In fairness, the PGA Tour made a huge error with that pin placement.
Of course, the PGA Tour want to make the golf course as challenging as they can for the very best golfers in the world.
However, sometimes the pin placement committee cross the line.
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Nobody wants to see unfair pin locations embarrass players and that’s exactly what happened at the Houston Open on Saturday.
It’s no coincidence that the fourth played as the toughest hole on the course on Saturday, with an average score of 4.373.
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