By Alex Myers
Ernie Els has battled putting problems late in his career, but this was just ridiculous. On his opening hole at the British Open today, Els missed a one-foot putt. No, really.
To make matters worse, the putt was for bogey. To make matters even worse than that, Els backhanded the next putt -- from about two feet -- and managed to miss that, too. Here's proof of the unlikely three-putt, courtesy of SB Nation:
The misses were ugly, but the careless manner in which the second one happened -- especially from a four-time major winner and the 2012 Open champ -- was most shocking. There are 71 more holes, Ernie! Well, maybe not that many if you can't keep the triple bogeys off your card.
UPDATE: Els' careless putting makes more sense now. Apparently, he was very shaken up after hitting a spectator with his opening tee shot. "I was thinking about him. There's blood all over. And I was quite rattled . . . Yeah, I was kind of finished. And then started missing short putts. It was a nightmare. So I'd like to put it behind me. I just hope the gentleman feels better, because he looked really bad when I left him there." We do, too.
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