A putt from a distance of just 1 inch rarely stirs up conversation in professional golf. Yet, it became the talk of the town during the opening round of LIV Golf Hong Kong. Sebastian Munoz was climbing the leaderboard with four birdies and an eagle. However, it all came tumbling down when he made a strange putting error and self-reported it to the scorer.

Munoz of Torque GC was 6-under through 14 holes at Hong Kong Golf Club. The Colombian was all set to make another birdie on the 16th, but the ball stopped right on the edge of the cup. His birdie attempt had fallen agonizingly short, leaving what should have been the simplest of tap-ins for par.

A par-save was the likeliest outcome, but Munoz whiffed the tap-in attempt as his putter totally missed the ball. Instead of nudging the ball into the hole, the putter blade skimmed over the turf and caught nothing but air, leaving the ball still dangling on the lip. The Colombian, absolutely dumbfounded by his own gaffe, looked up and eventually took another stroke to finish the hole.

Under the Rules of Golf, any attempt to strike a ball is considered a stroke. So, even though the ball didn’t move at all, it still counted toward a stroke. However, what Munoz did next caught everyone’s attention.

His playing partner, Bubba Watson, didn’t seem to notice the whiff, and neither did the scorer. The 33-year-old pro could’ve argued that he didn’t intend to make the stroke. He probably could’ve got away with it, but he chose not to.

Sebastian Munoz turned to the scorer and informed him that it should be counted as a bogey and not a par, showing why golf is said to be a gentleman’s game. He “penalized” himself with a stroke and accepted the square on his scorecard.

“Before anybody asked him, [Munoz] told the scorer, so that’s a bogey,” Jerry Foltz confirmed from the broadcast booth.

The moment left the broadcast team equally stunned. Lead analyst David Feherty summed up the unusual sequence bluntly on air.

“That was an attempt to hit it and he bounced over it,” Feherty said during the LIV Golf broadcast. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

Munoz’s simple action stands out when you look at the broader picture. Back in November 2025, European Tour Group handed Cedric Gugler, a 25-year-old golfer from Switzerland, a 10-event ban for reckless breach of rules. Gugler allegedly improved his lie on multiple occasions.

If you go back a bit further, English golfer Simon Dyson was banned for two months and fined $49,000 for breaching the Tour’s code of conduct in 2013. He used his ball to press down on a spike mark on the green. So golfers taking advantage of loopholes is not uncommon. Munoz showed character by not joining the trend, even though it came at a cost.

The timing of the blunder made it even more painful. Munoz had been one of the hottest players on the course early in the round, racing to five-under through his first 12 holes thanks to a stretch that included three birdies and an eagle. The sudden bogey on 16 abruptly halted that surge.

The 16th hole blunder derailed his momentum. Sebastian Munoz made another bogey on the very next hole. He eventually finished the day with a 5-under 65.  However, in round two, the Colombian golfer finished at 1-over to drop from 10th on the leaderboard to a T34.

Even so, the opening-round 65 kept him within striking distance after day one, leaving him tied for 10th at the Fanling course despite the bizarre mistake.

Munoz has yet to speak to the media after the incident. But as far as the whiff is concerned, even though it’s rare in pro golf, it has a storied history.

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Sebastian Munoz is the latest pro to suffer from a putting gaffe

From Paul Broadhurst to Jon Rahm, the tap-in putt has claimed many top golfers as its victims. From the Korn Ferry Tour to the PGA Tour Champions, you will find traces of whiffs everywhere. But none stands out like that of Hale Irwin.

It cost him the Claret Jug.

The situation was eerily similar to that of Munoz. Irwin had a tap-in putt on the 14th at the 1983 Open Championship. He swung his club casually but completely missed the ball. A par-save turned into a bogey. It was moving day at Royal Birkdale, and the real fallout of that missed putt was evident a day later.

Irwin finished just one stroke shy of the eventual winner, Tom Watson. That par-save on Saturday would’ve forced a playoff, but instead Irwin tied for second along with Andy Bean.

”It’s history,” the 20-time PGA Tour winner quipped later.

He was right. But he wasn’t the only one. Paul Broadhurst hit nothing but the air at the 2024 Senior Open Championship. It wasn’t that costly for the English pro. But Jon Rahm wasn’t so lucky at the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The Spaniard had a 10-inch tap-in putt, which he missed. Rahm’s case was what you might call the opposite of whiff. Perhaps, a yin-yang scenario.

Rahm intended to stop his swing but couldn’t. The clubhead touched the ball, and it barely moved an inch. The PGA Tour later shared that it was the shortest missed putt of that season. Rahm eventually finished at T17 instead of a solo 14th.

Tom Whitney, on the other hand, missed a putt from four inches at the 2023 NV5 Invitational. His tap-in putt caromed off the cup. It was dubbed the shortest missed putt in recorded history. But we have to accept that the moniker will now go to Sebastian Munoz’s whiff at LIV Golf Hong Kong.

The Colombian golfer joined LIV Golf in 2023 with Torque GC, captained by Joaquín Niemann. He made history by shooting 59 at the LIV Golf Indianapolis last year en route to his first victory on the Saudi-backed circuit.

That breakthrough victory came after he edged out Jon Rahm in a playoff, underscoring the level Munoz is capable of producing when he finds his rhythm.

Now it remains to be seen how quickly Sebastian Munoz can bounce back in Hong Kong this week.