Typically when you hit a shank, you lower your head, casually check over both shoulders, and make sure that nobody else saw what happened. Unfortunately for Thorbjorn Olesen, people saw his shank yesterday… in fact, millions saw it.
The mishit happened yesterday at the WGC-Dell Match Play in a match against Rory McIlroy. Olesen played well through the 13th hole, where he was 2-up on McIlory. The match slid to the Northern Irishman’s favor down the stretch and the fateful shank sealed the victory on the 18th hole. “You feel bad because he’s up basically the whole match, and to finish like that, as well,” McIlroy said. “If I hadn’t birdied 18 and he parred it, I would feel like I won the match and he probably would feel the same way, whereas he’s definitely going away like he lost it. It was his to lose.”
They say that the hardest shot in golf is the shot after a shank. Thanks to Rory’s birdie on the 18th, that hardest shot didn’t matter much for Thorbjorn.