Hindsight is always 20/20. After what happened at TPC River Highlands on Sunday, JT Poston would certainly want to take the lesson forward. Just three weeks ago, while other players struggled at one of the toughest courses on the PGA Tour, Poston lifted the trophy in a playoff at Muirfield Village. At the Travelers Championship, however, the wheels gradually fell off.

Poston opened the week at the TPC River Highlands with a three-under 67, sitting comfortably inside the top 20 after the first round. Cut to Saturday, he ran into trouble on the back nine, making a costly double bogey on the par-4 17th. But the final round proved even more difficult. The front nine started well enough. However, things took a turn going into the 13th hole.

On his first shot, Poston’s drive found the right side of the fairway, leaving him 229 yards from the hole. His second shot finished in the greenside bunker on the right. Cautious not to find the water, Poston could only advance his third shot 22 feet out of the sand. The ball settled in the fairway cut, still 59 feet short of the green. The meltdown continued.

His fourth shot, a chip from the fairway cut, found the water to the left, resulting in his first penalty stroke. As reported by Golfweek, Poston later explained that the area where his ball entered had been partially shaved, with the grass growing back toward the water, making the shot more difficult.

“First off, just hitting in that bunker is the last place we should have been,” Poston told Golfweek after his round. “It just ended up against the back of the lip (of the bunker) and I didn’t have much of a shot. I knew if I flew the bunker shot on the green, it was gonna go in the water based on where it was.

“It’s not really rough, where you can kind of blast it out. It’s into the grain, but it looks like you can get enough golf ball on it, which is why I kept trying to hit a good chip.”

His sixth shot also rolled into the water, costing him a second penalty drop. His eighth shot met the same fate, spinning back into the water and forcing him to take a penalty for the third time. His tenth shot finally reached the green, but he missed the putt for 11 before tapping in for a septuple-bogey 12. Talk about it not being your day!

The struggle continued on the par-4 15th. His tee shot found the water on the left, costing him a penalty stroke. He eventually carded a double bogey 6 on the hole.

“Putting it, I feel like it’s just going to hop and that takes all the speed out of it. And you’ve got this big false front you got to get it over,” he explained. “So my worry with trying to putt it was it would not have enough speed to get. Really get there.

“Yeah, I mean, obviously, in hindsight, I would have just hit to 12 feet and make by seven, but it’s one of those where, like, you feel like you can hit the shot, and so you try and execute it. I mean, we were in 40th place!”

Poston finished the round with a 76. It dropped him to 69th in the 72-man field, while the final round is still being played.

Fans stunned by Poston’s collapse

The Travelers Championship is one of the most scoring-friendly events on the Tour, and it is a course that regularly sees rounds in the low 60s. But a 12 is a kind of number that makes people refresh the leaderboard twice. With no video available to fans at home, they were unable to fathom what had happened to Poston.

One fan posted, “I didn’t believe this. Went to the PGA Tour to check. What in the hell? This isn’t the U.S. Open.” While another wrote, “How the h*ll did he put it in the water two more times after dropping?”

Amid the reactions, Poston himself took to social media to lighten the mood after his round and posted a GIF of Tom Brady, jersey number 12, alongside, “When in the NE area, I guess.” To ease everyone, he further added, “Nice bounce-back par on 14, on to the next.”

Other fans were simply sarcastic, as they said, “Really good effort for 11.”

Poston missed a 14-foot putt on his 11th shot before tapping in. Without that miss, the score could have been an 11. He recently came through the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, where the course punished the entire field. But nothing there produced a number like this on a par 5. It almost made him look like a person playing for a hobby and not professionally.

That’s exactly how another person described the septuple bogey: “Can’t put into words how relatable this is.”

Any amateur golfer who has stood over a short chip near water and watched it roll back knows the feeling very well. So, another simply showed their disbelief, saying, “This fella almost won the US open. Hahahaha.”

Interestingly, not only did Poston win the Memorial, which frustrates players like Rory McIlroy, too. But he was also giving Wyndham Clark a run for his money at the US Open. He tied for fourth by the end of the week but had one of the more consistent outings there, and his Sunday looked even more impressive. For now, even Poston knows what needs to be done:

“In hindsight, I would have just hit to 12 feet and make by seven.”