British Open 2024: Tour pro makes back-to-back NINES during historically bad stretch, fails to break 90

To be fair to Aguri Iwasaki, just about everyone struggled at Royal Troon on Friday. Even a two-time major champ like Justin Thomas shot a front-nine 45 to move from near the top of the leaderboard to outside the cut line. But the 26-year-old Japanese tour pro had a historically bad stretch of golf that hasn’t been seen at an Open Championship in at least three decades.

Iwasaki made the turn in three-over-par 39, nothing crazy. But things got worse on the back nine. Much, much worse.

He bogeyed 10 and after a nice par at the treacherous 11th, made double on 12. And then he went 9-9 on 13 and 14. That’s right, a full Wayne Gretzky.

Kudos to Iwasaki for hanging tough after that. He rallied with three consecutive pars. But then closed with a triple to shoot 91, 17 (!) shots worse than his first-round score. Anyway, have a look at his crazy second-round scorecard:

Again, that’s a NINE-NINE. You don’t see that every day. In fact, stats guru Justin Ray confirmed it’s the first time someone has made back-to-back scores of nine or higher in an Open in at least three decades.

Of course, you also don’t see scores in the 90s by tour pros often, either. Rough.

Anyway, Iwasaki came into this event off three consecutive missed cuts and ranked 569th in the world. He earned his spot in the field at Royal Troon by winning the 2023 Japan Open, topping Ryo Ishikawa by two shots in October.

MORE GOLF DIGEST BRITISH OPEN COVERAGE