SOUTHPORT, England — Players prepare their whole lives—and then most of the hours in the days before the tournament—preparing to play well in the Open Championship.
And then, of course, something happens they’ve never seen before.
For Tyrrell Hatton, that happened on the 13th hole on Thursday.
Royal Birkdale’s 13th tee shot presented one of the most awkward tee shots of the day. With a narrow hazard flanking the fairway left, and wind gusting from left-to-right, players feared aiming too far left, missing the wind gust, and ending in the hazard.
So all day players aimed down the right rough, hoping to pull it a little left, and accept their fate if not.
Tyrrell Hatton did exactly this, then put a bad swing on it. It happens.
But worse yet, he got a heavy dose of bad luck. When he walked up to his ball he found it on a footpath, deep at the bottom of a shoe print.
Here’s how he navigated it.
How Hatton recovered from a footprint 
With the tees a little forward during the first round, the 13th hole played 485 yards. Hatton flared his drive 321 yards out to the right, leaving him 164 yards to the back hole location.
After looking at the footprint lie, Hatton was worried about two things.
First, hitting someone. There was a large crowd following the Hatton-DeChambeau-Scheffler group down the sides of the hole.
“I was more worried about the people that stood there to be honest,” he said. “I didn’t want to hit anyone.”
As he settled into the details of the shot, he realized how buried his ball was. Making ball-first contact would be harder than he initially thought.
“I thought more realistically I was probably going to fat it because it was in such a heel print,” Hatton said. “I was worried about carrying the bunker that was like 50 yards ahead of me.”
With about 140 yards to the front edge, Hatton pulled a high lofted iron, put the ball back in his stance…
“Hit down on it and hope for the best that you do get ball first…I knew, if I did get ball first, it was going to come out low.”
His ball lasered out of the footprint and settled on the front of the green. Two putts for par, and he escaped from one of Royal Birkdale’s trickiest holes without any major damage.
And therein lie some lessons for the rest of us the next time we find ourselves in potential trouble.
What Hatton’s recovery can teach us Identify the trouble in front of you that you absolutely must carry
For Hatton, this was the 50-yard bunker
Prioritize ball-first contact above all else
Putting the ball further back in your stance helps ensure you hit the ball first
Pick the club you can get on the ball first
Hatton knew the ball would come out low, so he needed a high-lofted iron he could get on the ball
Work backwards from your club to find your target
Don’t start with a target and see what club you can squeeze onto it. Pick the club, then find a target. For Hatton, it was the front of the green.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
