Tour winner withdrew after making 9 and 10 on same hole at El Cardonal
PGA Tour veteran Camilo Villegas’ difficult season didn’t get better at last week’s 2025 World Wide Technology Championship. It got worse. The five-time Tour winner quietly withdrew from Friday’s second round, but not before reaching double-digits over par.
The primary culprit? El Cardonal’s par-4 4th hole, which Villegas played in 11 over in the first two rounds.
Camilo Villegas WDs after single hole tanks scorecard
Early in his career, Villegas was one of the top players in the game. He won three times from 2008-2010, and then again at the 2014 Wyndham Championship.
In his two-win 2008 season, he finished T9 at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines (won by Tiger Woods) and T4 at the PGA Championship.
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The next several years saw Villegas stumble down the world ranking amid on-course struggles and personal tragedy. But he eventually fought he his way back to the winner’s circle, ending a nine-year victory drought at the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
Unfortunately, this year has been a struggle for the popular pro. He managed only one top-10 finish, falling to 164th in the FedEx Cup standings. He’s ranked 166th in the FedEx Fall list.
Villegas WD’d after a poor opening round in his last start, the Bank of Utah Championship, but he was actually showing promising signs at the World Wide Technology Championship.
Though he opened the first round with a double bogey at the 10th and added another at 17, he also made two birdies and eagled the par-3 3rd hole to move back to even par.
But when Villegas reached the 4th hole on Thursday, disaster struck. The long par-4 runs uphill and is surrounded by sandy native areas. It appears that the native areas are where Villegas ran into trouble.
According to the play-by-play on PGATour.com, Villegas hit his tee shot on 4 into a native area. He then took his second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth shots from the native area, before getting back into the fairway.
After reaching the green with his seventh shot, Villegas two-putted for a quintuple-bogey 9. Just like that, his score-to-par dropped to five over. Two additional bogeys followed at 6 and 7 to complete a seven-over 79.
With players going low and the cut projected at five under par, Villegas needed a heroic round on Friday to play the weekend. Starting on the back nine on Friday, he quickly made birdies at 1 and 2 to improve to three over for the tournament.
After a par at 3, Villegas arrived back at the scene of his swoon in Round 1. But Villegas’ second attempt at the 4th hole went even worse than the 1st.
He lost his first drive and was forced to take a penalty and re-tee. According to the play-by-play, shots four through eight were “from fairway.” It appears that his eighth shot finally reached the green, where he two-putted for a sextuple-bogey 10.
After making par at the 5th, Villegas withdrew from the tournament. The Tour announced his WD but did not provide a reason.
At the point of his withdrawal, Villegas was four over on his second round and 11 over for the tournament, the same amount of strokes to par he lost on the 4th hole alone. That means he played the rest of the holes at even par.
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