40 feet of tree trouble: Canadian mid-am loses after hitting into, climbing pine

If you thought Tony Finau’s victory – and Scott Piercy’s brutal collapse – Sunday at the 3M Open was wild, you didn’t see last week’s final hole of the Alberta Men’s Mid-Amateur.

Ryan Werre appeared on his way to the win Thursday at Highwood Golf and Country Club in High River, Alberta, when he stepped on the tee box at the par-4 finishing hole leading by two shots.

However, he ran into some tree trouble – 40 feet of it to be exact.

After missing the fairway right and finding the edge of a bare patch of rough, Werre had his path to the green obstructed by some trees. He tried to navigate his way around them, but his approach hit a 40-foot-tall pine tree, and his ball never came down.

Trying to avoid a lost-ball penalty, Werre jumped into the tree and climbed nearly to the top, shaking the branches mightily, hoping his ball would fall out. It never did.

Werre ended up replaying his approach, now his fourth shot, and after finding a penalty area with that one, he eventually carded a quintuple-bogey-9.

Instead of winning, Werre tied for a disappointing fourth while Jesse Galvon was the beneficiary of Werre’s misfortune, winning the event for the second time.

“The craziest finish I’ve ever seen in person,” Galvon told Alberta Golf. “I don’t know if there’s a crazier finish that people know of. … It was a whirlwind. It was a very interesting last hole.”

As for Werre, he seemed to have taken the heartbreak about as well as possible.

“I just went up to him at the end and said, ‘I know there’s nothing I could say to make you feel better. I’m sorry. You played well all week and things happen,’” Galvon added. “But he handled it really well. I think almost anyone else would’ve been more upset.”