The most famous hole at the Players Championship is certainly the 17th, but Aaron Wise will not soon forget the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. After a thoroughly solid round, the last hole of his round turned out to be a real mammoth task. Especially with the tee shot he had his problems three times. And that, although he set a record on hole 13.
Second-highest score on 18 at the Players Championship
Aaron Wise, born in Cape Town, experienced a real debacle on his final tee shot at the Players Championship 2023. On hole 18, the 26-year-old started with two over par – a sextuple bogey almost provided the worst score on this hole. His tee shots landed in the water three times in a row – and almost at the exact same spot. The fourth tee shot, which was already his seventh shot due to the penalty strokes, he then played it safe. Very safe to be exact. In the end, his ball did not land on the right side of the fairway, but in the pine needles off the course. At least his ball was playable from there, though, unlike his three tee shots in the water.
As a result, he needed three more shots before his ball disappeared into the hole. In the end, Wise finished the final hole with ten strokes and slipped to second-to-last place on the leaderboard (T141). Wise received words of support afterwards from his flight partner Jason Day, who is familiar with such situations. “He didn’t want to completely blow it, which he eventually did with his fourth tee shot,” Day said. “He just kept hitting the same shot over and over again, unfortunately. We’ve all been at that point where we’ve made those shots, whether it was two, three or four in a row.” Asked if he had any advice for his teammate, Day was sure: “Oh, no…. You should just stay out of the player’s way. Especially if you’re on his team. Just leave him alone for a little bit, because he’s probably pretty irritated right now.”
Not a record, but a record nonetheless
After all, it wasn’t the worst score ever recorded on the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. Back in 2017, Anirban Lahiri conceded ten strokes on the final hole of the course in Ponte Vedra Beach. However, the highest score was recorded by Australian Andre Stolz in 2005. Eleven strokes remains the (negative) record to this day.
But Aaron Wise had already set another record, and a positive one at that. On hole 13, he hit his tee shot onto the green, where his ball came to rest about 20 meters from the flag. The subsequent putt, however, he holed confidently and thus set the record for the longest putt on 13 for over 19 years. It was a day of mixed emotions for Aaron Wise, but in the end it was probably the anger on the 18th hole that prevailed.