Justin Rose’s very odd misadventures using the wrong clubs the wrong way at TPC Sawgrass

Justin Rose had an interesting adventure up around the 11th green at TPC Sawgrass on Saturday. Rose was just off the edge of the putting surface, his ball settling up against the fringe and the high stuff of the first cut. As amateurs well know, that’s always a bit of an awkward play and it’s tough to get the putter blade through the thick stuff and then squarely on the ball for a nice stroke.

So Rose opted to chop down on it with the toe end of his putter. We’ve seen this before at Sawgrass. In 2001, Vijay Singh popped one onto the green with the toe of his putter and drained it at the 16th. This attempt from Rose, however, wasn’t quite as successful as that memorable Singh shot.

That was just the beginning, however, as Rose would flip the script a bit and use an iron from the middle of the green just moments after using a putter from off the green. He would miss the putt from the fringe position above, his ball finishing just over a foot past the cup.

So why’d he use an iron to clean up his bogey? According to the broadcast, there was a mark between his ball and the hole so he popped it up and over and into the cup.

That’s as odd a sequence as you’ll get up on a green, but Sawgrass tends to create those unique situations. That ugly bogey on a gettable par-5 dropped Rose to 5-under for the week, eight shots back of leader Martin Kaymer.