Haotong Li made headlines last year when he seemingly spent an entire day at TPC Harding Park’s practice range after taking the 36-hole lead at the PGA Championship. After what happened Thursday, he might want to hit a few more large buckets of balls.
Actually, there was plenty of good golf played by the 25-year-old Chinese star during Thursday’s first round of the Cazoo Open. An eagle and three birdies to be exact, including one on Celtic Manor’s closing par 5. But in between the bright spots was plenty of carnage. Lots and lots of carnage.
Have a look at this ridiculous scorecard that also includes a pair of double-bogeys to start, six other regular, boring bogeys, and a rare octuple(!)-bogey on No.12, where Li made a 12 on the par 4:
Wow. Just… wow.
Unfortunately for the young golfer, it’s been a brutal stretch going back nearly to last year’s PGA, where a tough weekend dropped him to T-17. Incredibly, Li has yet to make a cut in 11 starts in 2021 thus far, a streak that won’t be snapped this week with him being in last place of the 133 golfers teeing it up after the first day.
Ranked as high as 32nd in the Official World Golf Ranking in 2018 and still comfortably in the top 100 for most of last year, Li has fallen all the way down to No.388 after a missed cut at last week’s Open Championship. On second thought, instead of more range work, he might just need a rest.
