Pro rinses three straight tee balls in nightmare Players finish

So much ink has been spilled over the gut check that is the island-green 17th hole at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass that it’s easy to forget that arguably an even nervier test awaits on the ensuing hole.

The 462-yard par-18th is lined from tee to green by a lake down the left side of the crescent-shaped fairway. Overcook a draw from the tee and there’s a better-than-decent chance that your ball will find a watery grave. But play it too safe down the right and more trouble awaits: rough, trees, pine straw, mounds. If you don’t tense up on the 18th tee, you don’t have a pulse.

Just last year, driving machine Adam Scott pumped not one but tee balls into the water on 18 and walked away with a triple-bogey 8. In that same tournament, Matt Wolff was so exasperated by the home hole that he tossed a club into the lake.

“I would argue 18 is scarier than 17,” Rory McIlroy said.

Arron Wise would likely agree.

When the 26-year-old Tour winner arrived on 18 in the first round of the Players Championship Thursday, he was coming off a water-ball bogey at 17 but still hanging on to a respectable score of two over for the round.

Oh, but the horrors that were to come.   

Driver in hand, Wise addressed his ball on the tee box, wound up and …yep, overcooked it, his ball splashing down about 10 yards left of the fairway. Because his ball hadn’t crossed any portion of the fairway, Wise was forced to reload from the tee, from where…yep, he did it again. Overcook. Plunk. On take 3? You know where this is going…overcook. Gurgle. Gurgle.

With three consecutive drives into the lake, Wise was now hitting seven from the tee — and clearly determined not to make the same blunder for a fourth time. With his next swipe, Wise blocked his ball well right. It wasn’t wet (!) but it was in the trees. Next came a punch-out, a tidy wedge from the fairway to three feet and holed putt for [counts on fingers] a sextuple-bogey 10.

If there was any solace for Wise, it wasn’t the worst score on 18 in Players history. That infamous honor belongs to Andres Stoltz, who in 2005 posted a cool 11.

Wise signed for an eight-over 80, and is 16 back off leader Chad Ramey.

Sawgrass strikes again.