This week, we’re going to take a look at something near and dear to The Sand Trap’s heart: the best pressure-packed bunker shots in golf’s history.
Finding a bunker in a tough competition is never a good thing, but in some cases, it can be a great thing if the player possesses the muster, courage, and willpower to hole the shot. With PGA Tour sand save averages hovering around 50%, pros are only getting up and down once for every two attempts. Holing a bunker shot, though not rare, is far from commonplace.
It’s even less common when the pressure of having a major championship on the line weighs on a player’s shoulders as he steps down into the bunker and digs his feet into the sand. These five shots stand out from the rest in history.
Number Five: Birdie Kim holes out to win the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open
Birdie Kim, a relative unknown who’d only made the cut in about 1/3 of her LPGA starts to date, came to the last hole of the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open at Cherry Hills needing a par to stay in the hunt. With 17-year-old amateur Morgan Pressel comfortably in the fairway and tied for the lead, Kim’s chances took a nosedive when she planted her ball in the right-hand greenside bunker at the treacherous 18th. After Michelle Wie played out of the same bunker, Birdie Kim stepped in, splashed the ball out, and watched it roll some 30 feet before catching the left side of the cup and dropping for an unlikely birdie. Pressel later found the same bunker and bogeyed. Kim’s bunker shot may have been ranked higher on the list if she had intended to make it – instead, she was merely trying to get up and down for par.
Number Four: Bob Tway, 1986 PGA Championship at Inverness Club
Bob Tway has had a spectacularly unspectacular career on the PGA Tour… save for one swing. It’s tough to mention Larry Mize without mentioning Bob Tway, and it’s tough to mention Greg Norman without mentioning them both (typically after “Nick Faldo” comes up). Why? Well, they’ve both holed improbable shots to beat the Great White Shark at a major, that’s why.
In the 68th PGA Championship, Bob Tway had removed a 4-stroke advantage in the previous eight holes when they came to the par-4, 354-yard 18th hole at Inverness Club. Before Greg Norman put his 123-yard wedge to the fringe, Bob Tway’s 9-iron found a downhill lie in the right-front greenside bunker. The green sloped away, but Bob Tway’s bunker shot popped out of the bunker and landed a foot on the green before it started rolling… right into the cup. We’ve all seen the footage of Bob Tway jumping up and down in the bunker. Norman, needing to make his chip, went ten feet by and missed the come-backer to lose by two.
Number Three: Tiger Woods, 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine
Ask Tiger Woods what the best shot he ever hit was and he’ll answer the 3-iron out of a fairway bunker at the 2002 PGA Championship. He got into that awful predicament with a pull hook off the tee that found a fairway bunker. What he did to get out was nothing short of incredible. Standing 200 yards from the green, with an akward stance, a 30mph crosswind, and staring dead into the lip of the bunker, Tiger absolutely nuked a 3-iron which made the green. Tiger didn’t win the PGA Championship that year, but the difficulty of this bunker shot under the pressure of a major warrants its position in the list.
Number Two: Sandy Lyle, 1988 Masters
Sandy Lyle came to the 18th hole at Augusta National Golf Club needing a par to tie and a birdie to win his second major. Lyle, showing a bit of nerve, pulled his drive slightly into a fairway bunker on the uphill 18th – a sin in the land of Amen Corner. After all, finding the right spot on 18th green at Augusta is tough enough – as Chris DiMarco found out this past April – from the fairway let alone from a fairway bunker. With 143 yards to the pin, Lyle pulled a 7-iron and settled in for the shot. After giving up the lead midway through the round, not many people were betting on Lyle – the 1985 British Open champion – to make the playoff with Mark Calcavecchia. The ball came out of the bunker, ripped through the flag, flew past the pin, and then trickled back to about 10 feet. He holed the putt, shutting Calcavecchia out of a playoff and winning his first and only green jacket.
Number One: Two by Paul Azinger
Paul Azinger has holed a pair of pressure-packed bunker shots, so we’re lumping them together. His second came in a losing effort in the 2002 Ryder Cup, and was what Lee Westwood called “the best bunker shot I’ve ever seen.” One down coming to the 18th and his opponent safely on the green 30 feet away for birdie, Azinger had to hole the shot to keep any hopes of a U.S. victory alive. Azinger’s bunker shot from a downslope popped out, slid down the green, and plopped into the cup to even his match and split the point.
Nine long years earlier, in 1993, Paul Azinger holed a bunker shot on the 18th green to beat his friend Payne Stewart by a single stroke at The Memorial. Closeup video of Azinger’s ball in the bunker showed a large clump of sand behind the ball, and with Stewart 15 feet away for birdie, it was at least a must-have up-and-down. The ball came out perfectly, rolled perfectly, and a shocked Payne Stewart missed his putt.
Paul’s two bunker shots combine to earn him the top spot.
Just Missing the Cut
John Daly played a tremendous 100-foot bunker shot at the 2004 Buick Invitational on the first playoff hole to within six inches, leaving a tap-in birdie on the 600-yard 18th hole. Luke Donald and Chris Riley both missed putts, and Big John was the victor.
Ernie Els hit a ball into a greenside pot bunker at the 13th hole of the 2002 British Open at Muirfield. The 6’4″ Els could barely see over the top of the bunker, the size of which was so small he had to place his left foot on the sodded wall for balance. Worse yet, the ball had nestled down into a rake furrow, and the green sloped violently away from him. Voted “shot of the year” by the British press, Ernie had a two-stroke lead when he put the ball to eighteen inches, assuring a par.
Next Week
I’m not sure what we’ll count down next week, but feel free to leave suggestions in the comments (below).