Aaron Wise was holding his own for most of the day at the 2023 Players Championship. Playing in the more difficult afternoon wave at TPC Sawgrass as the first round neared its conclusion, Wise arrived at the difficult par-4 18th hole sitting 2 over for the tournament. Once his final putt dropped, he carded an 8-over 80, tied for the second-worst round of the day.
Wise’s sextuple bogey 10 on the finishing hole began when his initial tee shot found the water lining the left side of the fairway. Instead of dropping on one of the forward tee boxes where his ball crossed, Wise decided to tee up another to play his third. Another water ball followed. Playing his fifth from the tee, Wise once again found the water before blasting his fourth tee shot — seventh shot overall — way right into the trees.
In total, Wise found the water three times — effectively an entire sleeve of golf balls — and lost more than six strokes off the tee with the big stick. The good news for Wise is he only needed one putt when he reached the green as he stuck his ninth shot inside five feet to avoid the dreaded 11.
Wise’s 10 on the 18th marks the second-worst score on the hole behind Andre Stolz’s 11 in 2005, matching Anirban Lahiri’s 10 in 2017. Eventually signing an 80 to sit in a tie for 141st, Wise not only lost his golf balls into a watery abyss but also his aspirations of making the cut.
