Long Time Tour Pro JL Lewis' Website Recounts A Double Eagle That Never Happened, Then Corrects It

Hunter Martin/Getty Images

Long time PGA Tour journeyman JL Lewis has been very active on the interwebs - starting a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and a blog that he links to consistently (just like I would).  In a recent blog post, Lewis recounts quite a story from the Waste Management Open.

The scoring at TPC Scottsdale is usually low and the course plays fast with hard greens. The 17^th hole is a drivable par four that offers the opportunities for a score of two.  I was playing the last round with Scott Verplank one year and we both holed out for a double eagle on 17. I finished in the top ten and remember that moment as much as any of the 13 hole-in-ones I have made over the years.

That's an interesting story, but the most critical parts of the story are totally false.  Lewis has never finished in the top ten in Phoenix.  In fact, he has never finished inside the top 40.  The only player ever to have made a one on a par four was Andrew Magee, who did so in 2001 at TPC Scottsdale.

The only plausible explanation for this is that Lewis was confused that a two is an eagle at 17 and not a double eagle.  Then again, he knows that 17 is a par four.  So an ace is a double eagle.  A two is an eagle.  Which is it?

I've heard of fish tales.  I've even heard some golf tales.  But with the advent of the interweb, it's kind of hard to get something like this that wrong.

Update 9:11 am 3/29/10: Well, JL Lewis' wife provided an explanation to Waggle Room in an email.

"This article was transcribed incorrectly from J.L.’s handwritten notes. J.L. holed out for an eagle in the final round of the Phoenix Open in 1999. A two on a par 4 is an eagle not a double eagle.He did not finish in the top 10. J.L.’s notes said he was + 10 coming in – actually meaning he was 10 over par through his 14th hole of his round that day. Our apologies for misreading J.L.’s notes and getting this so wrong.

We will correct the article. Thank you for setting the record straight.   In all fairness, J.L. didn’t lie, it was an honest mistake by his editor."

And there you have it.  It's like when Jerry Seinfeld wrote down a joke in the middle of the night on paper but spent a week trying to figure out what he actually wrote.  Then it turned out not to be funny once he realized what it was. 

Or, to work in a Simpsons reference, when Homer is tempted by sultry co-worker Mindy Simmons, so much so that he writes a speech on his hand to tell her that he cannot cheat on Marge with her.  But Homer gets so nervous that the sweat in his palms ruins the speech into illegible garble.