Golf rookie suffers history-making nightmare at The Open after disastrous second round

Aguri Iwasaki had a debut to forget at the Open as he ended up with back-to-back nines to finish 23-over-par after a disastrous 20-over second round.

Several big names have found Royal Troon challenging this week, including Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, and U. S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, who all shot incredibly high scores and missed the cut. For Iwasaki, his two-day stint at Royal Troon was a historically poor performance in golf.

On Friday, Iwasaki, who started the day three-over after a first-round score of 74, made the turn in three-over-par 39. But his luck took a nosedive on the back nine.

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The 26-year-old bogeyed 10 before managing to save par at the treacherous 11th. He then made a double-bogey on 12 and followed it up with back-to-back nines on 13 and 14. At 13, Iwasaki hit three balls out of bounds on the par-4 13th, scoring an unfortunate nine on his card. Then, history bizarrely repeated itself.

At the par-3 14th, he landed in the greenside bunker off the tee. His first attempt stayed put, while his second attempt found a different trap, from which he failed to escape twice. He then played out backward before needing three more shots to get down, leading to a second consecutive sextuple-bogey.

Despite his struggles, Iwasaki deserves credit for persevering with three straight pars. However, the Japanese pro finished with a triple to shoot 91 - a shocking 17 shots worse than his first-round score.

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The Athletic has reported that Iwasaki's jaw-dropping display is the first instance in over thirty years where a player posted consecutive scores of nine or better in an Open. This disastrous performance brought him a back-nine total of 52, rounding off his play with an abysmal 23-over par, sending him to the bottom of the leaderboard at The Open.

Just earlier this week, Iwasaki was brimming with anticipation for his time on the renowned Royal Troon turf. As he stepped up for The Open, making his initial foray into a major championship, Iwasaki shared: "This will be a big confidence boost for me."

However, following an atrocious round of 91 on Friday, Iwasaki may well have taken a massive hit to his morale. Before teeing up at The Open, the golfer ranked 569th worldwide faced a run of missed cuts, but had clinched his spot in The Open after topping Ryo Ishikawa by a mere two strokes during his victory at the 2023 Japan Open last October.