Fore Right
Luke Donald had the perfect reaction to his round-ending shank that cost him a decent chunk of change at Wyndham
As someone who has had the odd shank pop up on occasion this summer, I can confirm there is literally NEVER a good time for a s-word on the golf course. However, I've also never hit a shank with a legitimately large chunk of change on the line like Luke Donald did on Sunday at the Wyndham Championship.
At Sedgefield's 18th hole, the Englishman hit one of the most ill-timed shanks ever as he attempted to close out what to that point was a solid final round. On his approach shot from the right rough, Donald, at the time two under on his day, shanked one way right and immediately knew it was headed for trouble. Normally, though, a player of his caliber would find the next one, hit a recovery shot and try to save his par.
That became impossible when Donald soon found out his ball kicked off a tree and ricocheted exactly one foot out of bounds, meaning he had to hit again from the spot of the original shank. From there, he hit his fourth to 77 feet, then three-putted for a disastrous triple bogey, which dropped him from T-27 to T-54, a difference of a little more than $30,000.
As you can see in the video, Donald handled it quite well on Twitter later in the evening, saying golf was "still the best game in the world," which a number of folks would disagree with after hitting a $30,000 shank. But Donald's likely suffered much worse pain on the golf course before and come out the other side just fine. Plus, it wouldn't have made all that big of a difference in his FedEx Cup standing, not to mention the fact he's the new European Ryder Cup captain. Things could be much, much worse.