Island Green Horror Stories

Sean O'Hair: The freshest nightmare in our collective memory banks, O'Hair was standing toe-to-toe with Phil Mickelson as they reached the 71st hole of the 2007 Players Championship. An adrenaline-fused 9-iron set sail straight at the pin but ultimately air-mailed the green. His ensuing shot from the drop zone found the green, but then rolled off the backside and found the water again. Two putts later, and suddenly dropping from second place to outside the top-10, O'Hair looked the part of Sean Penn in "Dead Man Walking."

Bob Tway: The golfing gods, as we all know, work in mysterious ways. Take Robert Raymond Tway IV, winner of the 1986 PGA Championship over Greg Norman thanks to a miraculous hole out from a greenside bunker on the 72nd hole. Fast-forward 19 years to the 2005 Players. Golfing gods feel the need to even things out: in the hunt on Saturday, Tway proceeds to hit four consecutive shots into the water en route to a nonuple bogey 12 – the all-time record for a high score at The Players on the 17th. That's also called a nonuple ouchie.

Watery Grave: Not an individual horror story, but more of a collective one. The sheer volume of balls lost at this devilish par 3 is quite impressive. Estimates put the number of balls lost into the water by amateurs at over 100,000 every year. In 2007, a record 50 balls landed in the water at the 17th hole in one round, courtesy of the professionals themselves. If alligators ate golf balls, there would be a bus-sized gator roaming those waters at this point.

Jeff Sluman: Quick trivia question: What's the one Olympic sport Sluman still refuses to watch even now? Diving. Probably can't stand Greg Louganis, either. Why? It was 1987, Sluman is in a playoff with Sandy Lyle. Slu has a 4-footer on 17 to win The Players. On a dare from a friend, a Florida State student – Slu himself a grad of FSU – dives into the water surrounding the island green. The crowd erupts with laughter, causing Sluman to naturally back off the putt and wait for security to fish the guy out of the water. Long wait makes short putt seem even longer at this point. Misses putt and loses to Lyle on the next hole. Sluman vows to never wear a Speedo again.

Angelo Spagnolo: Who? Understandable if you have forgotten this sad sap of a golfer. In a 1985 Golf Digest-sponsored contest called 'America's Worst Avid Golfer,' Spagnolo, a then 31-year-old Pennsylvania grocer, comes to the par-3 17th at Sawgrass and gets into the most anti-Tiger groove one can imagine: after 27 balls into the water, rules officials tell him to finally putt down the cart path and then up the narrow path that connects the green from land. The result? A mind-boggling 66. Deane Beman, PGA Tour commissioner at the time, quickly dubs the path leading to the green, 'Angelo's Alley.' This score ultimately lets Bob Tway sleep easier at night.