An NCAA Golf Championships Qualifying Round Just Had Some Truly Bizarre Drama

Jared Borislow8 years ago

When most golfers claim they shot worse than they should’ve because of “a stroke of bad luck,” what they usually mean is that they should’ve broken 80 but shanked a ton of balls into the woods, took free mulligans, got quadruple bogeys, then marked down single bogeys because they’re actually not very good at golf but have far too much pride to admit that (as I wrote about here).

Jacksonville University golfer David Wicks, on the other hand, has a bad luck story to trump all bad luck stories. Thankfully for him it all ended positively, but I’m hesitant to say “all’s well that ends well” because he almost singlehandedly disappointed thousands and thousands of people. Check it out.

How is that a thing that actually happened and not a scene from an It’s Always Sunny episode titled “The Gang Goes Golfing?” He went from having a three-foot tap-in (for him, I assume; I’m good to Ernie Els it from there) to stripping down to his skivvies and swimming around a dirty, stagnant pond looking for a needle in a needle stack. At least a positive came out of it — 20 free golf balls for five minutes’ work is pretty solid. Any day you leave the golf course with as many/more balls than you came with is a good day.

Wicks nutting up and finishing strong is pretty incredible given the circumstances. If that had happened to me, I’m pulling a Virginia Woolf in that pond once the five-minute timer runs out. Never re-emerging. Can’t; too embarrassing..

[via Twitter/@RyanLavnerGC]

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