Published: July 17, 2008 01:09 am            

COLUMN: Lee’s collapse hard to watch

It’s not often that a professional athlete’s game falls apart so quickly it’s over before he or she knows it.

But when it does happen it is always painful to watch.

It’s never more apparent than on the golf course.

Australia’s Won Joon Lee experienced just such a letdown last weekend in the Nationwide Tour’s Players Cup at the Pete Dye Golf Club.

Lee entered the second day of the tournament in second place, great position of taking home the $180,000 winner’s paycheck and nearly assuring himself a PGA Tour card next season.

But just like it does to so many of us after making a nice putt or straight drive, fate struck Lee and she struck hard.

He birdied No. 1, which was his 10th hole of the day. So far, so good.

He followed that up with a par on No. 2.

Then came back-to-back bogeys on 3 and 4.

That’s bad, but not horrible. A good professional golfer can usually make up those two strokes somewhere along the line.

No one can be perfect all the time, especially on the golf course, although Tiger Woods probably comes close.

But back to Lee.

You could almost feel the big blowup coming, despite the smile never leaving the Korean-born golfer’s face.

He came back on No. 5 to score a par, but looming ahead was the No. 6 hole with water running nearly the entire length of the fairway on the right.

Myself and the volunteer live scorekeeper for the group walked about a hundred yards ahead of the tee box on the cart path to get a better view.

Lee’s two playing mates both avoided the water hazard. One ended up on the fairway. The other seemingly overcompensated because of the large amounts of aqua on the right and ended up over the cart path and in the rough on the left.

That left Lee, one of the longest drivers on the Nationwide Tour.

He let loose one of his monster drives. Almost immediately the scorer said it was heading right. A few seconds later that distinctive sound of a golf ball striking water echoed loudly, and large, concentric circles broke the stillness of the water.

Without hesitating, Lee plucked another ball down on the tee and gave it another mighty whack.

No one saw where the ball went. It didn’t find the water, that’s for sure, but Lee must have had some idea because he quickly set up another tee shot — his third.

This one finally found dry land, or any land for that matter. But Lee wasn’t out of trouble yet.

A couple extra putts on the green left him with a quadruple bogey on the par-5 hole and essentially ended his chance of playing the weekend.

A collapse of those proportions was hard to watch, doubly so for Lee himself. I genuinely felt bad for the guy who just happened to play a bad hole at the wrong time.

But even though golf is an unforgiving game, the only way to shake a round or hole like that is to get back out on the course.

I’m sure Lee will do just that, and I’m sure he’ll eventually forget about that fateful Friday at Pete Dye Golf Club in Bridgeport — someday.

E-mail Mike Bowen at mbowen@timeswv.com.

        

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