One hole took down two contenders on Saturday afternoon at the U.S. Open.
The short, dogleg right 13th hole, which only measures 368 yards, turned into a beast—at least for Tony Finau and Ludvig Åberg.
When Finau stepped on the 13th tee, he had just dropped back down to 4-under for the championship, thanks to a bogey at the 12th. Bogies do not kill golfers in U.S. Opens, but anything worse does.
After finding the fairway off the tee, Finau had less than 100 yards into the pin, which sat on a little shelf on the front right corner of the green. A false front repels anything a tad short, while a slope beyond the pin knocks anything long into a sand trap that must be avoided.
Accuracy on this approach was paramount, and both Finau and Åberg wound up making a mess of things.
Finau’s second shot came up short, as his ball rolled all the way down the slope, settling 30 yards short of the green. He decided to bring the putter out, but that attempt failed miserably. Finau raced his putt well past the flag, and it ended up in the bunker.
The ping-ponging had begun.
“Didn’t have a very good lie. Didn’t really want to pitch it,” Finau said of his third shot.
“Ended up playing ping-pong there.”
His bunker shot then went too far, settling in an area not far from where his second shot had stopped. He wound up making a triple bogey seven, knocking him all the way down to 1-under.
“Thirteen is going to jump out at me as a hole that was the toughest pin on the whole championship, in my opinion,” Finau added.
“That green is pretty crazy right there where that pin is—just the wrong time to miss a shot. Anything can happen on this golf course. I’m just happy with the way I finished.”
Finau closed with five straight pars to card a 2-over 72.
Åberg, meanwhile, played two groups behind Finau and made a similar mistake.
“What happened to me on 13 is not ideal,” Åberg said.
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“It doesn’t necessarily change the way that you try to approach this golf course. I think there’s only a certain way you can play it. If you don’t play that way, you’re going to get punished. That’s what I did.”
Unlike Finau, the Swede tugged his drive on 13 into the native area left of the fairway. He then hit his second shot just short of the green, exacerbated by the severe slope in front. Then Åberg airmailed his chip into the back bunker, and he, too, began to play some ping pong.
When his game on 13 ended, Åberg penciled in a dreadful seven, sending him back to 2-under for the championship. Meanwhile, his playing partner, Bryson DeChambeau, had all the momentum in the world.
Now DeChambeau leads by three over Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, and Matthieu Pavon at 7-under. Åberg sits five back, while Finau is six. But if not for the unlucky 13th hole, they would still have a chance to win. And yet, their ping-pong games ended in disappointment, but they ended their shots at capturing that first major title, too.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.