It all came down to a 9-foot putt on the final hole Friday at The Players Championship, and it just didn’t drop this time. Brendan Steele experienced a pair of roller-coaster rounds and came up one stroke too many to make the cut.
The Idyllwild native posted a 1-over-par 73-72 — 145 and missed playing on the weekend for only the second time this season.
Steele’s drives, including one of 344 yards, averaged 298, but his driving accuracy was only 53.57 percent, and he managed to hit only 63.89 percent of the greens in regulation.
His approach-iron proximity averaged 36 feet over Thursday’s and Friday’s rounds. AIP is an experimental attempt on our part to gauge iron play by measuring the distance from the pin on approach irons to par 3s and par 4s only. Also, the PGA Tour website reports that he gave away 0.05 strokes putting over the two days.
Steele is slated to play in this week’s Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Jack Clark may be reached at [email protected].
