There are bad holes, and then there are the kind that become part of golf lore. Five tee shots. Five out of bounds. One par-4 hole. Hans Merrell found himself in the latter category at the 1959 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, when the club professional carded a 19 on the famed par-3 16th at Cypress Point Club. More than six decades later, Korn Ferry Tour pro Ryan McCormick produced that exact sequence on Friday at Hillcrest Country Club during the Albertsons Boise Open, an ordeal that wouldn’t end until a 20-foot, 5-inch putt finally dropped. And it was a kind of golfing disaster every golfer can relate to.

Having already made three bogeys on the front nine, the St. John’s University product had steadied himself on the back nine, until everything unraveled on the par-4 ninth hole. What followed was the kind of sequence that sounds almost too absurd to be true. McCormick hit five consecutive tee shots, each one disappearing left, into a sea of trees and out of bounds. No official explanation was offered for the streak, on a hole with no reported wind or course issues to blame.

Finally, on his 11th shot, he caught a break. The ball once again veered left, but this time it stayed in bounds, carrying 325 yards into the rough. With just 88 yards remaining, he found the green and eventually holed a 20-foot, 5-inch putt to bring the ordeal to an end. By the time he walked off the ninth green, he had signed for a 12-over-83. 

Holes like this are exceedingly rare in professional golf, but for recreational players, they can feel all too familiar. Naturally, McCormick’s meltdown didn’t go unnoticed online, with one Reddit user chiming in with his own tale of a similar unraveling.

“I hit 3 balls out of bounds on the last hole of a tournament. My feeling with each shot was ‘this next one is going right down the middle.’ The 4th one did, incidentally, and I ‘birdied’ for a 10 that moved me from 3rd to 20th (last in this case). Something about OB on the left just draws me to it!”

But the New Jersey native might not be as disappointed as the ninth hole may suggest. He likely already knew he wasn’t going to make the cut after Friday’s round. He’d carded a 5-over-par 76 on Thursday, a round that featured four bogeys and a double bogey. He finished the tournament dead last as a result. Through 11 starts in 2026, McCormick has struggled, missing seven cuts with only one top-25 finish. The slide isn’t new: he missed 15 of 25 cuts during his lone 2024 PGA Tour season, finishing 169th in the FedExCup standings, then finished 91st on the 2025 Korn Ferry Tour points list after returning to the developmental circuit.

This isn’t the first time Ryan McCormick has made headlines for an unusual reason.

Ryan McCormick once taped his own mouth shut during a Korn Ferry Tour event

McCormick was struggling with his temper throughout the 2025 season. By April 2025, he’d tried everything to change his mindset on the golf course. Books, conversations, and different approaches did nothing to stop his frustration from boiling over.

“I’ve tried about everything,” McCormick said. “I’ve read a lot of books, I’ve talked to people … just too angry on the golf course, so I have run out of ideas.”

So, during the Club Car Championship at The Landings Golf & Athletic Club, he decided to try something that was considerably harder to ignore. His answer was to tape his mouth shut.

“I just figured I’d shut myself up,” he explained.

He shot a 72 and missed the cut at 1-over 145. When asked how he communicated with his caddie, he laughed: “Mostly just writing down the numbers.”

McCormick doesn’t have much room left to work with. His conditional status means the next handful of starts carry real weight, and a dead-last finish at Boise isn’t the kind of week that helps his case. The blowup on nine will get shared around for a day or two, but that’s not what decides his season. What decides it is whether he can string together some results before the schedule runs out on him.