Five-putt put Snedeker in elite group of golfers

Perhaps the second most famous quote in Masters Tournament history, behind Roberto de Vicenzo’s “What a stupid I am,” came from Seve Ballesteros after a four-putt on the 16th hole in 1990.

“I miss, I miss, I miss, I make,” the Spaniard reportedly said.

Imagine the horror Brandt Snedeker felt when he could have added another “miss” to the line on the fourth hole last year. Snedeker five-putted the wicked front pin on No. 4 on Saturday – the longest of the five being the fourth from 8 feet that he admittedly lagged trying to escape the torment.

“At that point you’re just trying to get out of there,” Snedeker said. “It’s such a bad experience. You’re getting ready to make a triple bogey and kick yourself out of the tournament on a hole that’s got no hazards on it or any reason why you’d make a huge number.”

Golf provides ample opportunity to embarrass the practitioner, but for a professional, there may be no more painful experience than the five-putt.

“I don’t know how many guys have done it – it’s an exclusive club,” Brooks Koepka said of his five-putt on the 18th green in the second round at Torrey Pines this year. “Me and Brandt are in that club together.”

Told that Phil Mickelson five-putted the 10th green at Sawgrass in the 2002 Players Championship, Koepka lit up.

“Mickelson? Pretty sweet group.”

Said Snedeker: “It’s really not that elite.”

Of course, it’s anything but sweet in the moment. The face gets flush. The muscles get tense. The brain goes blank.

“Don’t miss the fifth one,” was all Koepka could think about when his tournament was running off the rails with each miss. “Just don’t miss that fifth one. I was more nervous on the fifth one, because the crowd started to cheer. I was like, all right, this is actually pressure. Because they are like, ‘Come on,’ trying to lift me up.

“I just laugh about it, laugh it off. It’s a unique thing, doesn’t happen very often.”

Mickelson said it “happens quite a bit more than it should for great players.” It has the potential to happen even more at a course like Augusta National, where the combination of green speed, slope and pressure conspire to create risk-reward situations on the greens.

“You have to putt so defensively on these greens, and the stroke and contact is so lacking authority that it’s hard to keep balls on line, and balls will continue to drift down the slope,” Mickelson said. “So it’s very doable. But with that being said, you can’t putt defensively thinking about that. And sometimes, you’ve got to take on some putts, some 4- or 5-footers, take some break out, realizing it’s going to go 12 feet by if you miss it. That’s just part of playing Augusta, picking and choosing what putts of those you want to take some risk.”

Since Augusta National started keeping track of three-putts in 1995, it’s revealing that only three players have won the Masters without a single three-putt – Ben Crenshaw (1995), Tiger Woods (1997) and Jose Maria Olazabal (1999).

“To play on putting surfaces that you can actually see your reflection at times is very intimidating,” David Feherty said. “No question those greens make you sweat.”

Snedeker found out the hard way that one of those places to challenge is not the front left pin on the sloping tongue of the fourth green. “I know the guy who sets the pins there and I still give the guy a hard time,” Snedeker said. “That’s Augusta. You’re going to do that every once in awhile. It was a tough pin. I’m now equipped to handle that pin knowing how fast that putt was. I think in years past I’d always been underneath the hole and didn’t really know how fast that putt was. Last year I found out the hard way.”

It was the first career five-putt for a player with a reputation as one of the PGA Tour’s best putters.

“I just hit four bad putts in a row, and it kind of snowballed,” he said at the time.

Crenshaw, another elite putter in his prime, said the high-profile hiccup is nothing Snedeker should be ashamed of or think about in the future.

“That front location … oh my god,” Crenshaw said of the fourth hole. “I’ve had a four-putt myself on occasion. Not at Augusta but certainly at other places. I would only guess in Brandt’s case, he hits the ball pretty firmly sometimes. Either they were too firm or a lack of concentration. His method is wonderful and very aggressive. I like that very much. He has his own way of doing it.”

Snedeker – who has twice played in the final Sunday pairing at the Masters – won’t dwell on it in his return. It was just another lesson that he’s been learning at Augusta since he first played it as an amateur in 2004.

“I played with Freddie Couples there and four-putted No. 6 my first round,” Snedeker said. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘If you haven’t four-putted a green at Augusta National, you haven’t played the Masters. We’ve all done it.’ After five-putting one now, I know what he means.”