Standing over her third shot on the par-4 15th on Friday, Slovakian Ladies European Tour pro Pia Babnik was just outside of the podium places. Her tee shot had just found the water, but at one-under on her round following a scintillating 66 on Thursday, Babnik just needed to salvage bogey to keep herself in the mix heading into Saturday’s decisive finale. Instead, she shanked one so far out to sea it might have landed in the Mediterranean.
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We’re not here to pile on. Babnik had been playing great golf, and we’ve certainly launched a hosel rocket or two (hundred) over the years. But if there’s one time and one place you don’t want to shank one, it’s exactly here, staring down water everywhere, entering one of the toughest stretches at Le Golf National.
Oddly, Babnik’s caddie appeared to pull out her driver after the mishap. We don’t know if he thought she was going to try that off the deck after sending an iron halfway to the Azores or if he just trying to send a message:
CLUB. UP.
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Either way, Babnik seemed to get the message, hitting her fifth (woof) over the back of the green. From there she chipped it to eight feet and then two-putted for a quadruple-bogey eight. To her credit, the Slovakian held it together after that, finishing par-par-birdie to end the day at two-under for the tournament, but whatever medal hopes she may have had unfortunately sunk with her ball.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
