There are memorable ways to end a season and then there’s what happened to Joost Luiten during the final round of the DP World Tour Championship.
It had been a long week for the 37-year-old Dutchman, who found himself four-over par and well down the leaderboard after a bogey on his eighth hole in the final round at Jumeirah Golf Estates (Nicolai Hojgaard would win the tournament with a 21-under total).
The frustration, however, grew more intense when he followed that up with an errant drive on the ninth hole. In response, Luiten angrily threw his driver in the air near a tree as he left the tee. The problem? The driver never came down.
OK, no worries. Luiten and his caddie would just throw something else in the tree to rattle the club out. But given the way the week was playing out, perhaps it’s no surprise what what happened next.
“I tried to get it out by throwing some other clubs at it and [two] other clubs got stuck up the tree so I couldn’t get them out.”
The ensuing video shows the hijinks in real time is something to behold.
Taking tree trouble to the next level 🌳@joostluiten threw his driver into a tree and then loses two more clubs trying to retrieve it! #DPWTC | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/uOqUmPyxZm
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) November 19, 2023
While seemingly humorous for a short while, you can tell Luiten’s frustration goes to a new level at about the 45-second mark. Thankfully the DP World Tour social team made sure the video remained kid-friendly.
Luiten moved on, playing the rest of the hole with 11 clubs and making another bogey to fall to five-over.
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And yet, the story eventually involves a happy ending. A volunteer managed to get Luiten’s clubs out of the tree and return them to him for the back nine—with an assist from Luiten’s wife, Melanie-Jane, who was in attendance despite being eight months pregnant with the couple’s first child.
Sure enough, Luiten made three straight birdies on the back nine to finish with a one-over 73 and a three-over total.
