After going through a significant post-2019 Masters slump, Francesco Molinari has shown a pulse on several occasions over the last eight months. A T-8 at the AMEX, a T-10 at the Farmers, another T-8 at Riviera, and, perhaps most impressively, a T-13 at the US Open at Torrey Pines. Thursday’s first-round two-under 68 at Royal St George’s was another great sign that the 2018-’19 version of Molinari was slowly coming back.
Golf being the painfully cruel game that it is, all those positive signs were undone on one hole Friday morning. Molinari, who won the 2018 Open at Carnoustie, made an absolute mess of the par-3 sixth. His quadruple-bogey seven included two attempts to get out of a greenside bunker, each resulting in his ball hitting the face of the bunker and nearly hitting him on the ricochet. His third attempt finally got out, but that was only because he went backwards for safety. This is a tougher watch than the end of “Se7en”:
To Molinari’s credit, he played the final seven holes in two-under, posting a 74 and finishing at two-over for the week. The problem? Two-over missed the cut by … checks notes … ONE shot. Nightmare fuel.
