‘I missed the ball’: Varner on THAT tee shot at Riviera

There are lots of ways to tackle Riviera’s iconic 10th but chunking one 129 yards off the tee when sharing the lead at one of the PGA Tour’s gala stops probably isn’t one of them. Harold Varner III was going along very nicely at 10-under when the unthinkable happened. The plan was to get a 3-wood down by the green for a chip up to the hidden-away pin.

As it was he left a shot of 177 yards in a crosswind which was never going to find the green. One small crumb of comfort was that the CBS broadcast didn’t actually show it. Cue a double-bogey 6, a back nine of 41, a round of 74 and a tie for 13th.

The most sought after footage since the Zapruder film apparently. Here's the elusive Harold Varner topped 3 wood. No toptracer included. @NoLayingUp @BrendanPorath pic.twitter.com/cJF782CcZi

— Andrew Stephens (@AStephensPGA) February 17, 2020

The 29-year-old explained: “I don’t know, I just know I missed it, I missed the ball. I couldn’t tell you what exactly happened. I just know that I hit the dirt before the ball. I wish I would have hit it off the deck.”

The approach went left in the wind, his third skipped through into the back bunker, and he missed his bogey putt from 12 feet.

“I was screwed pretty much,” he added. “It’s not like you can just hit the next one on the green and be like, all right, salvage it. I just wish I would have rebounded a little bit better.”

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Varner admitted that he actually had a bit of previous with this type of shot when playing with Tyrrell Hatton.

“I’ve actually done it before, which is funny enough. I did it in Korea, same exact thing, same exact wind. I’m gonna call Tyrrell and say that I did it again. He’s gonna laugh his ass off.”