Golf can be tough. What one week gives you, it can easily take away the next. A volatility that Jake Knapp knows all too well. The Californian claimed victory in Mexico two weeks ago, his first win on the PGA Tour, which at least for now buried a period of ups and downs where he even worked as a bouncer at a nightclub in his native Costa Mesa. His good run continued last week when he contended for the win at the Cognizant Classic to finish fourth.
Jake Knapp, results
From heaven to hell at Bay Hill, a cruel stage these days for the Arnold Palmer Invitational, one of the season's major regular tournaments. The prelude to The Players has become a true ordeal for poor Knapp, who there experienced one of the most nightmarish holes in recent history. It happened on the sixth, the legendary par 5 that curves around one of the course's lakes. Knapp took 12 shots to finish it, after sending his first shot into the water, taking another dip on the second, and making a tremendous escape to the right on the third in his attempt to avoid the obstacle. His fourth shot from the tee, seventh in total, found the rough on that same side, he had to get back onto the fairway with the eighth, didn't reach the green until the tenth, and, after two putts, closed with a quadruple bogey. Another four bogeys followed, already frustrated, between the 7th and the 15th, before salvaging a bit of the situation with birdies on the 17th and 18th.
Even so, he couldn't avoid finishing dead last among those who made the cut, and he enters Sunday with a +12 overall after a +9 on Saturday. He's seven shots behind the next player on the leaderboard, Nick Dunlap, another one who, after winning the AmEx as an amateur, the first to achieve such a feat since Mickelson in 1991, is experiencing the dark side of this sport: an 80th place at Pebble Beach, a missed cut at the Genesis, and a 53rd at the Cognizant are his results since then.
