After surprising bunker tantrum, Olympic contender tumbles down leaderboard

Emiliano Grillo bought off to a dream begin in his second Olympic Video games on Thursday. However on Friday, the tide turned on Grillo, culminating in a bunker tirade that despatched him tumbling down the leaderboard.

The longtime PGA Tour professional is Argentina’s greatest hope at a males’s Olympic Golf medal, and he shouldered that weight impressively within the opening spherical at Le Golf Nationwide, capturing a five-under 66 to get inside three pictures of Hideki Matsuyama’s early lead.

In the beginning of Friday’s second spherical, Grillo displayed tremendous type as soon as once more, going one below by way of his first eight holes to succeed in six below for the event, placing him proper up among the many leaders.

However on the ninth gap, Grillo confirmed his first signal of cracking, the place he missed a 2’11” putt to make a bogey 6. On the ensuing gap, the two-time PGA Tour winner misplaced his cool fully.

Grillo left his strategy shot on the par-4 tenth in a entrance greenside bunker. Dealing with a tough shot with little room to work with between him and the pin, Grillo despatched his bunker shot crusing 30 ft past the opening. That’s when his frustration bought the very best of him as he slammed his wedge into the bunker 3 times, then kicked sand out of the entice to complete off the efficiency.

The thumps from Grillo’s bunker pummeling, which was paying homage to Sergio Garcia’s 2019 bunker meltdown, could possibly be heard on the Golf Channel broadcast, and a TV analyst who witnessed the second reside remarked, “Man, that sand is feeling the brunt of Grillo’s anger.”

Watch the second under.

It was a sight that is probably not all that uncommon at your native muni, however one that’s fairly uncommon within the professional ranks.

And as typically occurs, it didn’t assist Grillo’s rating. He made bogey at 10, then adopted it with three consecutive bogeys at 12, 13 and 14 to fall properly off the tempo of the leaders.

Grillo has his work reduce out for him if he hopes to get again into medal place for the weekend rounds.

Kevin Cunningham

Golf.com Editor

As managing producer for GOLF.com, Cunningham edits, writes and publishes tales on GOLF.com, and manages the model’s e-newsletters, which attain greater than 1.4 million subscribers every month. A former two-time intern, he additionally helps preserve GOLF.com buzzing outdoors the news-breaking tales and repair content material supplied by our reporters and writers, and works with the tech group within the improvement of recent merchandise and modern methods to ship an enticing website to our viewers.