Brendan Steele had a rough time in the PGA Championship last week. He made the cut on the number, but posted an 11-over-par 75-74-77-73 — 299 to finish in 77th place. Stats showed his driving accuracy was only about 43%, which resulted in hitting only half the greens in regulation. His putter gained him nearly a stroke per day on the field, but it wasn’t enough to score well.
Odd disaster struck Saturday at the par-5 16th hole. As reported in Golf Digest, after his drive went way right and his recovery attempt was only mildly effective, his third shot went into tall grass to the left of the fairway. He searched for the ball for nearly three minutes before hitting his fourth shot over the green. When he eventually got on the green, he noticed that the ball he previously had found in the tall grass was not his. A two-shot playing-wrong-ball penalty combined with a stroke-and-distance lost-ball penalty, resulting in a 5-over-par score of 10 on the hole.
The Idyllwild native now stands 70th on the FedExCup points list and is listed as 83rd on the Official World Golf Ranking.
Brendan will have this week off, but we hope to see him next week in Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio, in which Brendan tied for 13th last year. The field for that event should be announced this coming Friday afternoon.