Big Break II Round-Up

In a way, it’s a good thing that it took me so long to write up a summary of the seventh episode of Big Break II – in the week that I’ve been busy, there’s been another episode!

Last we tuned into BB2, the field of men looking for the four Nationwide Tour exemptions had been whittled to five, and we had watched as my favorite – Big Mike – had his putter fail him against Kip in the elimination challenge. I fully expected David to get eliminated during that episode; how would he and the rest of the field fare over the past two episodes?

In the seventh episode of The Big Break II, the skills challenge had the five players hitting long-iron shots closest to the pin. Bart Lower came out on top, winning his third exemption of the show and giving him half of the exemptions so far.

That left Don, John, Kip and David for the Mulligan and Elimination challenges. In the increasingly important mulligan challenge, the four men divided into two groups, and had to hit 60-yard wedge shots closest to the pin again. With Don and David in the final showdown, the image of Donatello yelling at the judges to “Pull that tape tight!” was almost too much to bear.

But, maybe Don should have yelled louder – he lost the mulligan challenge by an inch to David. On to the skills challenge, where players had to just grip it and rip it … with a twist. In the middle of the fairway, there was a five yard-wide rectangular target. Take the distance of the drive, subtract the distance outside of the target area to get total distance. Inside the rectangle? Add twenty-five yards. Got it?

Again, they divided off into pairs, and again Don and David ended up in the final round. Despite the angst-ridden shots by Donatello, David’s shorter distance off the tee proved his undoing, and he walked off the course with a smile.

(One week later…)

In the eighth episode, the four remaining players were treated to a day in the sand for the skills challenge: cumulative closest to the pin from three bunkers. Once again, Bart won a day of rest and relaxation, and the remaining three players – John, Don and Kip – moved on to the mulligan challenge.

For the mulligan challenge, the players had a roughly thirty-yard chip to one of five targets, each representing a playing card, and increasingly smaller as the value of the card increased. Five alternating shots to build a poker hand, and then two consecutive shots from the players with the two best hands to determine who wins the mulligan. With five aces, Kip won the mulligan.

In the elimination challenge, the three players had a one-hole playoff, best-score wins. After the hole, Donatello was at one-under, with Kip and John tied at even. After the second hole, John and Kip remained tied, and moved onto the third hole of their one-hole match.

John pushed his tee shot hard right, into an adjacent fairway while Kip left himself wisely short. After Kip placed the ball on the green and left himself with a decent two-putt, John flew the green and missed his par putt.

With hugs all around, John left the show and the three remaining men to fight for the final prize.

The next episode of Big Break II comes on Tuesday at 9:00 PM Eastern, on the Golf Channel.