There are at least a couple words that golfers try to avoid saying aloud.
One begins with “y.”
The other with “s.”
Forgive us, but for the purposes of this report, we must now surface the latter: shank.
Just as another s-word happens, so, too, do shanks — even off the clubfaces of the most skilled golfers in the world. Ask Marc Leishman, the 41-year-old six-time PGA Tour winner who now plays for LIV. In the opening round of the 2022 Wells Fargo, which that year was played at TPC Potomac in Maryland, Leish settled into a greenside bunker on the par-3 17th hole. “I opened the face right up and tried to slip the club under the ball,” he said after the round. “It scared the hell out of me; I certainly wasn’t thinking about the water hazard.”
The resulting shot was a stunner: a hosel rocket that nearly decapitated his playing partner before disappearing into a pond on the far side of the green. Leishman later said the shank was memorable (also, presumably forgettable) but not his most memorable. That bit of infamy came in 2018 when Leishman shanked a ball over the heads of a startled gallery. Taking in that spectacle was his playing partner: one Tiger Woods.
At the 153rd Open Championship on Friday, Leish added to his shank files, on the golfing holy ground of Royal Portrush.
You couldn’t have seen it coming. Leishman certainly didn’t.
Through 12 holes in the second round, he’d made five birdies and not a single bogey. He was rolling. “Everything felt pretty good,” he said after the round. “Putted well. … Drove it well; didn’t hit any fairway bunkers today.”
Then he arrived on the tee at the 13th, a downhill par-3 that plays about 200 yards to a small green protected by five bunkers. Leishman addressed his ball, drew back his 8-iron and . . . yup, thwacked a 148-yard s-word into clumpy rough well short and right of the green. The ball landed in such a gnarly spot that Leishman was forced to play a provisional. (He wouldn’t need it; Leishman found his tee shot, hacked out and saved bogey.)
“A bit scary when that happens,” he said of his shank after signing for what otherwise was a terrific round of three-under 68.
Pesky thing with shanks is they stick with you. When you hit one, it’s hard not to think, is another one coming? That’s how Leishman felt over his closing six holes Friday. “Obviously you try to block it out of your head, but they do say the hardest shot in golf is the one after a shank,” he said. “I felt like every shot coming in was that shot.”
And one shot in particular.
After a solid drive on the par-4 18th, Leishman had 168 yards left to the pin. The shot he wanted to play — a cut 8-iron — was, he said, “exactly the same shot” he’d tried to play on the tee at 13.
“I was certainly thinking about it,” he said of the shank.
Nightmare fuel, only with a happy ending.
With his final iron swing of the day, Leish feathered his approach to the middle of the green, 18 feet past the hole. Two putts from there and he’d capped his round with his 11th par of the day to keep him squarely in the hunt for the weekend.
“It was tough,” he said of battling past his shocking swipe, “but you’ve got to laugh about it and hope it doesn’t happen again for a while.”
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