The scene at the fifth hole of the NAIA Women’s Championship on Tuesday was so bad it reduced some to tears. The number of 9s, 10s and 12s posted on the menacing par 5 at Eagle Crest Golf Club was nothing short of shocking. In the field 156, 90 players made a score of double or worse. Only three players made birdie.
“At the end, I was basically calling it a par 7,” said Southeastern coach David Joyner, whose team posted scores of 9, 8, 7, 7, 6.
“If you got lucky and putted it a foot past the hole, a perfect putt, it had a chance to stay,” said Joyner. “If it wasn’t in that perfect spot, it rolled back down to your feet.”
Some of the best players in the field six- and seven-putted. The field’s scoring average on the hole was 6.97.
Joyner’s team went through the hole in the morning, but as things warmed up in the afternoon, players spent over an hour waiting on the tee box to hit as entire teams – players 1-5 – were backed up. The wait was so long, in fact, coaches were worried about the lack of bathrooms.
Cumberland’s head coach Aaron Watkins posted a video on X that showed a player’s ball catching the right edge of the cup on the fifth, circling the hole and then coming back to her feet. She hit another putt just shy of the cup and it rolled back down.
“This was happening all day,” Watkins wrote.
As the debacle went viral, even Phil Mickelson weighed in on social media, responding to a tweet with “I have a suggestion,” alluding to that memorable time he hit a moving ball at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock.
The NAIA released a statement Tuesday evening to address the situation:
“We regret to confirm that an unfortunate situation occurred at the NAIA Women’s Golf National Championship. The hole on No. 5 was incorrectly placed in a challenging position. We take this matter seriously and have taken immediate steps to ensure this type of situation will not happen again. The NAIA is committed to the student-athlete experience.”
The fifth hole caused such a delay in play that the six teams didn’t finish the first round before play was suspended due to darkness.
Officials didn’t dot the greens ahead of time, so coaches weren’t aware of the hole locations in advance. But that really wouldn’t have mattered, Joyner noted, as they were told that the hole location on the fifth green was placed in the incorrect position, and no one from the tournament committee went out to check hole locations Tuesday morning before play.
“I just hate that it was embarrassing for some of the players,” said Joyner, “and it shouldn’t have been.”
Unfortunately, a similar situation took place two years ago at the NCAA Division III women’s golf championship, only in that case the third round was canceled because of an unplayable hole.
The situation occurred on the 308-yard par-4 sixth hole at Mission Inn & Resort’s El Campeon Golf Course in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. Numerous videos posted to social media showed the pin placement on a severe slope with putts coming up just short of the hole rolling back 10 to 15 feet, if not more.
On Tuesday in Ypsilanti, Michigan, some players putted the ball past the hole and got lucky when it rolled back in the cup. Goofy golf.
Joyner said he would’ve wiped out the hole to speed up play and save embarrassment.
British Columbia held the first-round lead at 9 over, four shots clear of Marian (Indiana) and nine in front of Keiser (Florida), Milligan (Tennenssee) and SCAD Savannah (Georgia). Keiser had two quadruple-bogey nines on the fifth hole, along with a triple, a double and one par.
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