If you thought Scott Piercy's horrific collapse and Tony Finau's triumph at the 3M Open on Sunday was crazy, wait till you see the final hole of the Alberta Men's Mid-Amateur last week.
When Ryan Werre stepped onto the tee box at the par-4 final hole leading by two strokes on Thursday at Highwood Golf and Country Club in High River, Alberta, he appeared to be on his way to the victory.
But he encountered some tree difficulty, precisely 40 feet of it.
Werre encountered several trees that blocked his way to the green after missing the fairway to the right and finding the edge of a sparsely populated area of rough. He attempted to get around them, but his approach hit a 40-foot-tall pine tree, and his ball remained in the air the entire time.
Werre leaped into the tree, climbing almost to the top while violently shaking the branches to avoid receiving a lost-ball penalty. I never did it.
Werre ultimately had to replay his first shot, which was now his fourth, and after that one ended up in the penalty area, he eventually recorded a quintuple-bogey-9.
Werre failed to win the event; instead, he tied for a depressing fourth place, with Jesse Galvon taking first place for the second time.
Galvon described the finish as "the wildest I've ever seen in person" to Alberta Golf. There may not be a crazier finish that people are aware of. It happened in a flash. The final hole was quite fascinating.
Werre appeared to have handled the heartache as well as he could have.
"At the very end, I approached him and told him, 'I know there's nothing I can say to make you feel better. I apologize. Things happen even when you play well, Galvon continued. But he did a great job of handling it. Nearly anyone else would have been more upset, in my opinion.
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