VIDEO: Player goes 40 feet up tree with 2-shot lead on final hole
24 Jul 2022
by Chris Brauner of AmateurGolf.com
see also: Barrhead Country Club
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How about this stance? (Kevin Smith video screenshot)
With a two-shot lead on the final hole of the Alberta Mid-Amateur at Highwood Golf & Country Club, Ryan Werre took a gamble.
With his opponent in good shape and his ball in a sandy area about 200 yards from the green, Werre attempted to reach the green but watched his shot sail into a towering pine tree. It never came down.
Stunned, but realizing that he only had three minutes to search for and find his ball, the native of Medicine Hat, Alberta, made the decision to try to identify his ball in the tree. Doing so would allow him to take his penalty drop closer to the green rather than having to play the same shot he had just faced.
So he went up.
We've seen a golfer do this before, most famously Nick Faldo in the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach:
But with all due respect to Faldo, who did a pretty good climb and a pretty vigorous shake, his effort was nothing compared to Werre's, who went WAY higher into much thicker greenery to dislodge his ball, and whose shake was the stuff of legend.
Alas, like Faldo his ball never came out (although about 50 pine cones did). Perhaps exhausted from the adrenaline rush and extreme climbing, Werre put his next shot into a hazard, ultimately took a 9, and fell into a tie for fourth.
The entire sequence was captured by Kevin Smith:
Jesse Galvon, whose birdie on 17 got him within two and whose par on 18 sealed the tournament, was as shocked as anyone by the turn of events on the final hole.
"The craziest finish I've ever seen in person, I don't know if there's a crazier finish that people know of," Galvon told Alberta Golf after. "He literally climbed a 40-foot tree almost and he's shaking the whole tree . . . it was a whirwind, it was a very interesting last hole."
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Alberta Mid-Amateur
54 hole stroke play championship with a cut after 36
holes.
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