Abe Ancer did … not like the results of this chip shot with LIV’s Spain occasion on the road.
LIV Golf
There’s no stress like match stress, and because the saying goes, stress breaks pipes.
Nowhere was this extra apparent than on Sunday afternoon at LIV Andalucia, as LIV’s finest got here down the end line on the famed Valderrama Golf Membership in Spain.
And as for the supply of at this time’s stress? Nicely, let’s look no additional than Abraham Ancer, LIV professional and present member of the Fireballs squad, which discovered itself clinging to a late lead within the match’s crew championship.
(First a fast refresher on LIV’s crew format for these — this writer included — who stay hazy: On Fridays and Saturdays, three of 4 scores depend in direction of the crew rating. On Sundays, all 4 gamers’ scores depend in direction of the general crew rating, and the crew with the bottom 54-hole rating wins.)
With the Fireballs holding a one-shot lead on the 53rd gap of the match, Ancer confronted a difficult — however not unattainable — chip shot from the mouth of Valderrama’s fifth inexperienced, needing to get up-and-down for par to maintain the crew lead secured.
He surveyed the shot carefully, regarded down on the ball and dedicated. A split-second later, he grimaced. Ancer’d dedicated the cardinal sin of short-game photographs, decelerating by means of the ball and catching a fats chunk of turf earlier than his clubface had reached the ball. Ancer had chunked it. His shot traveled only some ft, stopping nicely in need of the flagstick and establishing an almost unattainable putt to save lots of par.
Ancer’s face crumpled right into a grimace because the frustration of the second cascaded round him, however it wouldn’t keep that approach for lengthy. Simply as quickly because the ball got here to relaxation on the lip of the inexperienced, Ancer turned his again to the shot, reached his arms again and swung them round his torso in a fury.
The butt of his membership, which simply seconds prior had been sitting neatly towards his chest, was now hurtling by means of the air with a vengeance, flying out in direction of the closest tree stump.
By the point his membership had returned beneath terminal-velocity, Ancer had launched his membership some 20 yards away from the inexperienced, and the group surrounding him was decreased to a whisper.
Ancer would go on to make double-bogey on the fifth gap, his seventeenth of the day, however the drama wasn’t finished there. Simply seconds after the catastrophe on 5, Ancer went on to the sixth gap and made a tournament-saving birdie for the Fireballs, pushing the crew right into a playoff for the title, which captain Sergio Garcia would go on to win.
When it was all stated and finished, Ancer was the hero — and the Fireballs the champions. However on social media, a unique story had already performed out; the story of one in all 2024’s most legendary membership throws.
