D.A. Points breaks PGA Tour’s ShotTracker with Texas Open implosion

The above image is some sort of sadistic artwork, and also ShotTracker’s best attempt at capturing the misadventures of D.A. Points on the first green of the Valero Texas Open.

This TPC San Antonio course always plays as one of the most difficult on the PGA Tour schedule, especially when the wind is up. And as this Vine from the Tour’s Jonathan Wall shows, the wind is whipping there today. Of the 72 players on the course, only two are under par.

But Points’ start is a unique kind of struggle. He followed that opening triple bogey with an ugly bogey at a par-five and then a quad bogey on the par-three third that left ShotTracker all tied up again.

That left points a smooth eight-over through his first three holes. He’d be nine-over after four following another bogey, but finally got on the board with a par at the fifth hole.

Points is working on a round that should land somewhere in the mid-80s and could push 90. He won’t be the only one either. Johnson Wagner is 10-over through his first 11 holes and has two triple bogeys on the card.

Despite those implosions, the car crash standard at this event remains Kevin Na, who carded a 16 on the par-four ninth in 2011. The quattuordecuple-bogey set a record for the worst par-four score on the PGA Tour.

UPDATE: It’s really, really hard out there right now at TPC San Antonio and Points’ scorecard isn’t an outlier. Wagner is 14-over through 16 holes. Camilo Villegas just quintuple bogeyed the same par-3 that points made a mess of. Scott Stallings had an 11 on a par-5.

In addition to the two pre-tournament withdrawals early Thursday morning, three more players have dropped out since the start of the first round. Some may be injured, some may just want to avoid hacking it around in impossible conditions, especially if they have to play the Masters in two weeks. The scoring average at the moment is the highest it has been on the Tour since 2007.

★★★

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