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Justin Warren says he’s good at letting the bad shots go. Well, usually, anyway. His ability to do so is being put to the test after he missed a one-foot putt in a sudden-death playoff at the Monday qualifier for the Barracuda Championship in Reno. “Honestly I’ve just been trying to forget it,” Warren said Wednesday by phone from Henryville, Indiana, where he was playing a qualifier for a Forme Tour event. “It’s just one of those things, it’s awful and it sucks and it’s s—, but I’ve always been pretty good at putting things in the past and waking up and not thinking about it. But it’s been hard because it’s getting millions of hits.” There is no glory in golf quite like Monday-qualifier glory, as the story of Michael Visacki at the Valspar Championship illustrated in April. On the flip side, there is no agony like it, either. Warren could have qualified outright for his first PGA TOUR event had he not pushed a four-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th hole. It was, he said, an “uncommitted stroke” and the first putt inside 10 feet he’d missed all day. His 65 sent him into a playoff with Mark Baldwin, 37. The rest is history. On the first playoff hole, Warren rushed his tap-in and pulled it. Video of the gaffe quickly made the rounds as one of the most painful examples of golfing agony. Twitter went crazy, led by Warren himself, who admitted his routine “flew straight out the window.” TOUR winner Michael Thompson tweeted, “What a harsh lesson to learn. I pray Justin becomes a wiser pro because of that. There’s a reason we PGA TOUR pros take so much time over tap ins. It’s so easy to make a mistake. #everyshotcounts” Asked Wednesday for the distance of the putt, Warren said, “It was one foot. “I simply didn’t give the situation or the putt the respect it deserved,” he added. “I saw that my coin was going to be in Mark’s way, so I thought I’ll just get up there and tap it in. Make Mark have to make his eagle putt to take the spot. But I rushed. I was nervous.” To add an odd quirk to an already odd story, Warren wasn’t even supposed to be in Reno, where his “brain fart” opened the door for Baldwin to take the fourth and final qualifying spot. He was supposed to be home preparing for an Australasian Tour event followed by the first stage of European Tour qualifying tournament. (He missed getting through second stage by a shot in Spain in 2019.) Alas, Warren couldn’t get home due to the ever-evolving COVID restrictions. “I was supposed to be quarantining in Sydney right now,” he said with a rueful laugh. Until Monday, Warren was less famous than his grandfather, Barry Warren, who beat Bruce Devlin in the final of the 1957 Australian Amateur. Justin, 25, played for South Mountain C.C. in Phoenix and was an NJCAA (Div. II) champion in 2016 before finishing his collegiate career at Arkansas Little Rock. Among his professional highlights was a fourth-place finish at the 2019 New South Wales Open, one of the bigger events of Australasian Tour. “I was tied for the lead going into the last,” he said, “but I went for glory and hit into the water and made double.” Until he’s able to get home, Warren’s plan is to try to make the best of it by entering more qualifiers. He is at Indiana’s Champions Pointe Golf Club for a pair of Forme Tour qualifiers, and otherwise isn’t exactly sure where he’ll tee it up next. The Barracuda was his sixth try at Monday qualifying for a TOUR event; he still has to play in the pre-qualifiers. “I’ve had a few decent results, so I have a little money in the bank to pay for it,” he said. “And some members from my home club (Australian Golf Club in Sydney) have helped out.” It’s a precarious existence for a player who doesn’t have a car and is relying on rentals and Uber and rides from friends to get around. His caddie at the Monday qualifier at Hidden Valley C.C. was Tom Patterson, an Australian who plays for the University of Nevada – Reno. Warren is friends with fellow Australian Matt Jones and looks up especially to Rory McIlroy, whose driving game and general comportment he admires. Warren, too, is a long and generally straight driver of the ball, and if he has any regrets from his time at Hidden Valley, other than the whiffed tap-in, it’s that he failed to birdie two par 5s despite having short irons in for his second shots. But really, the tap-in was the biggie. “I’m still thinking about it because my phone is still blowing up about it,” he said before starting another practice round in another city, ever hopeful that his next competitive round might be the one in which he turns the corner. “I’m just trying to put it in the past and play well this week.”

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Kevin Kisner survived a calamitous finish at the PGA Championship thanks to a good bounce off a bridge that allowed him to escape with a bogey and take a one-shot lead into the final round at Quail Hollow. Kisner already gave up a two-shot lead with a shot into the water on the 16th hole. He nearly did it again on the 18th until the ball hit the concrete bridge, sailed high in the air and disappeared in thick grass on the hill above a creek. He did well to chop that out onto the green and two-putt from 45 feet for a 1-over 72. He wasn’t alone in his struggles at the end of a long day of oppressive heat. Chris Stroud, the last player to qualify for the PGA Championship with a playoff victory last week in Nevada, three-putted for bogey on his final two holes for a 71 and will play in the final group with Kisner. Also one shot behind was Hideki Matsuyama, who had a 73. Jason Day was right there with them until a peculiar decision likely cost him a reasonable chance. Stuck behind a tree right of the 18th fairway, Day chose not to pitch out to the fairway and tried hooking it around the tree and the gallery to the right. The club clanged off the pine and the ball went into the bushes. He took a penalty drop, found the rough, came up short of the green and ended with a quadruple-bogey 8 for a 77. Day was seven shots behind. Rickie Fowler got within three shots of the lead until a three-putt bogey on the 16th hole, a tee shot into the water on the 17th for a double bogey, and a three-putt bogey on the last hole. That sent him six shots behind. Through all that chaos, Matsuyama kept alive his chances to bring Japan its first major. Matsuyama made his share of mistakes, and while he failed to convert two good birdie chances, he played the last five holes bogey-free for a 73. Kisner was at 7-under 206 as he goes after his first major championship. Of the 15 players who remained under par, Louis Oosthuizen is the only one who has won a major, and that was seven years ago. Oosthuizen saved par from a similar spot Day was in on the 18th hole and shot 71. He was at 5-under 208, along with Justin Thomas, the son of a PGA professional who played bogey-free over his last 12 holes and posted a 69.

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