The price of a single shot

On the PGA Tour, thousands of dollars routinely swing on the execution of a single shot. This weekend’s stop, the $15.1 million Players Championship – among the richest championships of the Tour season —  was hardly an exception.

Just to pick one obvious example, consider the cost of Lee Westwood’s so-so first putt at the island green 17th hole during Sunday’s final round.

Westwood came to the hole trailing eventual champion Justin Thomas by one stroke, and landed his tee shot safely – perhaps too safely – on the left-center of the green. He was 47 feet away from a tying birdie. He three-putted, then birdied the 18th to finish that same single stroke behind Thomas.

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When you or I three-putt from 47 feet, we call that nothing unusual. But when Lee Westwood gassed his approach putt seven and a half feet past the hole then missed coming back, he wrote off the potential for a million-dollar playoff with Thomas, that being the difference between the $2.7 million and $1.6 million first and second prizes.

For the record, that’s $23,404 per foot of putt or $367,000 per putt, however you prefer to tally it.

It was nothing new for Westwood, who lost a chance at a $660,000 playoff with Bryson Westwood last Sunday when he failed to get up and down at the par 5 16th hole of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

Westwood was hardly alone in his fortune, or lack of same, this week. Up and down the leaderboard, week in and week out, the story is the same; only the dollar value of the shot changes.

Take Cam Smith, who tied for 17th, seven strokes behind Thomas. For his efforts, Smith walked away with a cool $221,500 Sunday. But it was nearly a lot less…like $221,500 less.

On Friday, Smith came to the ninth hole – his 18th – at one over par and needing a birdie just to make the cut. The ninth at TPC Sawgrass is a par 5, making it getable. Still at 583 yards it’s no soft touch.

From 255 yards out, Smith fired at the green in two, striping a fairway wood to within nine feet from the cup. It was a brilliant shot at precisely the time he needed that kind of brilliance, and it brought him home on the cutline.

When they wrote the checks Sunday, that fairway wood was the difference between Smith turning his fix-figure profit on the week and leaving early.

Adam Long had a similar experience. Coming to the island green 17th Friday, Long stood one-under and safely in the weekend field – if he kept his ball on the island. He didn’t. His approach shot landed in the right-center of the putting surface, bounced hard and hopped off the back into the pond.

That left Long hitting three from the drop zone and needing an up-and-down just to nail down the bogey  he would need to play the weekend. The ball rolled nine feet by, but Long center-cut his return putt and lived to play two more days.

In those two days of grace, he shot 67-72 and climbed into a tie for 22nd place, clearing nearly $136,000. Not a bar return on one shot, a nine-foot putt.

Harry Higgs also had what later turned out to be nearly a $100,000 shot. His came on the 16th hole Friday, and it saved a par, allowing him to remain on the cutline.

From a perfect lie in the center of the fairway, Higgs had mangled his 210-yard approach, pulling it wildly onto the cart path left of the green.  As the ball flew out of control, Higgs had only one thing to say, “Fore!”

Given a free drop from the path, he lifted a wedge the remaining 67 yards, dropping it on a downslope short of the green. Fortunately for Higgs, the ball kicked forward and rolled 15 feet past the cup, from where he could two-putt for the par he needed to stay in play.

When Higgs finished 67-73, that par-saving recovery turned out to be worth $96,125, the amount he won for his t-29 finish.

The breaks, of course, went both ways. Several players felt the sting of a single missed shot, although probably not to the million-dollar level experienced by Westwood.

Consider the case of Marc Leishman, a popular pre-tournament pick to contend. He might have made a weekend run but for an awful break on the island Friday.

Leishman arrived there at one-under for the  tournament, a stroke clear of the cutline. His tee shot landed on the front portion of the putting surface. But it caught a slope that sent it spinning back 30 feet to the left and eventually over the boards into the pond.

Leishman’s approach from the drop area left him 13 feet below the hole, and the bogey putt he had to have lipped out. Saddled with a double, he missed the cut by one stroke.

Scottie Scheffler knew Leishman’s pain.  Standing in the middle of the 16th fairway Friday, Scheffler was two-over par needing birdies on two of the final three holes to make the cut. He was in superb position to get one of them, having left himself an obstacle-free 241-yard approach shot.

But Scheffler badly pulled that approach, the ball landing not far from where Higgs’ had come to rest. Staring at a 25-yard downhill pitch out of the rough and between a pair of sentinel trees, Scheffler played it delicately, stopping the ball just seven feet from the cup, a makeable birdie distance. But that birdie putt died a foot from the cup.

Saddled with a mere par, Scheffler did birdie the 17th, but took another par at the difficult 18th and missed the cut by a stroke. That single shot cost him at least $30,000, more if he had played well on the weekend.

But that’s life on Tour, where five-figure and sometimes six-figure sums routinely change hands on a single swing or putt. Lee Westwood can tell you all about it.