Round 4: THE PLAYERS

By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Just so you know, Charley Hoffman hit the shot he wanted at the par-3 17th. Twice.

He just couldn’t plan for the wind.

“I can’t,” he said, “control the wind. I can only control my golf swing.”

Luckily, both got in sync on his third attempt — this one from the drop zone — and he walked away with a quadruple-bogey 7. Conversely, the hole knocked him out of contention at THE PLAYERS.

Hoffman was 10-under for the tournament and closing the gap on David Toms when he stepped to the 17th tee. He was 6-under when he walked off the green, having teed it up twice from the regular tee and once from the drop zone.

“I hit it right where I was aiming,” he said. “The next thing I know, the wind came up and  . . . I felt pretty good about the swing so I hit it from there again.”

Aggressive? You bet.

“I get it on there and hit it to 6 feet for birdie, then I go to 10 and hit 2-iron, 7-iron for another birdie, post 12-under and you never know what happens,” he said.

Nice scenario… if it had worked out.

Instead, he managed to get it on the fringe, then clean up with a 14-inch putt for his 7. He closed the day with a par for a 71 and a 6-under-par 282 and dropped about two dozen places.

“I know that cost me a lot of money, but I can sleep tonight knowing I went out down swinging,” Hoffman said. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I had just hit it out there to the left of the pin and played safe.”

His assessment of the hole?

“It’s a great hole,” he said.