In the final round of the Players Championship, Chad Ramey encountered an unusual predicament on the island-green 17th hole when his tee shot ended up on the wooden plank bordering the green. Opting against a penalty drop, he played a delicate chip from the plank and saved bogey. Earlier, he carded his first competitive hole-in-one on the 13th hole.
Chad Ramey produced one of the more unusual shots of the final round at the Players Championship on the Stadium Course. Starting with a highlight on the par-3 13th, Ramey hit a 7-iron from 183 yards that landed softly on the left side of the green, caught a slope, and rolled into the hole for an ace—his first in competition. “I couldn’t get any putts to fall, so to not have to putt, that was nice,” Ramey joked afterward, after signing for a one-under 71 that brought him to three under for the week in his fourth Players appearance, positioning him for a likely top-30 finish. The drama peaked on the par-3 17th hole. Ramey's tee shot rolled through the back of the green into the rough strip separating the putting surface from the wooden plank. The ball soon dislodged, dropping onto the plank but spinning back to stop against the turf line, leaving a chip no player would envy. Ramey recalled a prior mishap there: in the 2023 Players' second round, he led approaching the hole but made quadruple-bogey 7 after two water hazards, shooting 75 and finishing T27. This time, with the pin on the lower tier far right, he rejected a penalty drop from the zone. “Where that pin is, [the drop zone] is not where you want to be. So I just kind of weighed the odds and we determined it was worth taking the chance,” he said. Standing with one foot in rough and one on the plank, Ramey used a lob wedge. The club struck wood first but popped the ball five yards onto the green. He two-putted for bogey. “Right before I hit it, I was just like, please, just get the ball on the green. It couldn’t have worked more perfectly,” Ramey said. NBC's Brad Faxon noted he had never seen such a lie on 17 and remarked on the club's contact. Ramey confirmed he had never practiced it: “No.”
