Poston’s septuple – J.T. Poston started Sunday at the 2026 Travelers Championship 3 under and looking solid on the 13th hole after finding the fairway. Then a greenside bunker and a string of shots that repeatedly caught the water turned into a septuple-bogey disaster—one hole th
CROMWELL, Conn. — On Sunday at the 2026 Travelers Championship, J.T. Poston walked onto the 13th tee with something to protect. He was 3 under heading to the hole after finding the fairway on the lone par 5 on the back nine at TPC River Highlands.
Then the tone changed immediately.
Poston’s second shot from 229 yards out went into a greenside bunker right of the putting surface. He said the first trouble wasn’t the result—it was the location. “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.”.
He knew what would happen if he tried to force it onto the green. “I knew if I flew the bunker shot on the green, it was gonna go in the water based on where it was,” he said.
So he tried to avoid the water, but the bunker shot came up short of the green. It left him 59 feet from the hole in a fairway cut. On his fourth shot. Poston hit what he thought was a good pitch. only for the ball to roll through the green—down the slope on the left of the green and into the water. A penalty drop followed.
Poston said the area where his ball entered the water was partially shaved, with the grass growing back, toward the water. He said that if you dropped the ball it would roll back into the water, but he was able to place the ball on the turf.
From there, it got worse.
He tried to keep it out of trouble with a chip, but it wasn’t rough enough to make the shot easy. “It’s not really rough, where you can kind of blast it out,” Poston said. “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.”
Using a sand wedge on his sixth shot, the ball came up short and rolled back into the water, forcing a second penalty drop. Then, on his next attempt, his ball went rolled back into the water again after a shot he made 8, which led to a third penalty drop.
After that stretch, the hole didn’t even feel like a single mistake—it felt like a loop. Poston’s 10th shot, from rough, went 13 feet past the hole. He missed that putt for 11, then tapped-in the 8-inch putt that remained for 12. In the end, the par 5 13th became a septuple bogey.
The question of what to do instead stayed in his mind, too.
“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,” Poston explained. “So my worry with trying to putt it was it would not have enough speed to get. really get there.”
He acknowledged what would have been better in hindsight. “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!”
That was the kind of detail that makes the moment sting—because it wasn’t only about the leaderboard. He was trying to execute from a spot that wouldn’t give him any margin, and the hole punished every effort.
After he made that 12 on the par 5 13th, Poston’s trouble kept moving.
On the driveable par-4 15th hole, his tee shot found the water on the left. He made double-bogey six on that hole, and within the span of an hour, his score at the Travelers Championship went from 8 under to 1 over.
He finished the day with a 76 and left himself in 69th place in the 72-man field.
J.T. Poston Travelers Championship TPC River Highlands 13th hole septuple bogey penalty drop bunker water Sunday collapse
13th hole sounds cursed, wow.
So he was 3 under and then just… didn’t? Bunkers and water are like the evil duo on that course. I don’t even watch golf but that seems wild.
Wait I thought he was supposed to “protect” at 13 and then he basically decided to go around the water? But it still ended up in the water anyway? Makes no sense to me, like how do you hit from 59 feet and have it roll into water, I’d be mad.
This is why I hate those big tournaments like Travelers, the greens are always like tiny traps. He said the bunker was the last place to be but then he’s in it anyway, so sounds like bad luck + course setup. Also the article mentions “partially shaved” grass growing back toward the water… idk, that just feels like an unfair bounce thing. Septuple-bogey though?? That’s gotta be like once in a blue moon.