‘Well that’s a new one’: Pro living golfer’s worst nightmare after flying from the Masters

Tom Hoge just got a terrible surprise when he unpacked his clubs after this weekend’s Masters tournament.

No, it’s not an injury that will cost him the rest of his PGA Tour season — as is the unfortunate case with Will Zalatoris. Instead, it’s a mangled golf club after an airline didn’t give his checked bag the proper TLC it deserved.

Hoge, who won the Masters Par-3 Contest last week ahead of the championship proper, took his frustration out on Twitter, showing the damage to the club in the photo below.

“Well that’s a new one @AmericanAir,” Hoge tweeted. “Thought we just had the standard broken driver today.”

This is every golfer’s worst nightmare every time they fly with golf clubs. Checked bag after checked bag gets thrown around by the good, hardworking folks at the airport. But don’t forget, they might have no idea how valuable the items inside the bag actually are.

In Hoge’s case, one of his irons died on that wall for a few of the others to survive. To make matters worse, based on the caption above, maybe his driver was sacrificed as well? He sure makes it sound like it.

An incident like this only adds to Hoge’s travel woes this year.

After setting the TPC Sawgrass course record (62) during the third round at this year’s Players Championship, Hoge didn’t just have to rebook his flight after realizing he had made the cut, but, on his return home, he shared a photo of his legs being scrunched in coach!

Look, I’m not here to judge, but doesn’t Hoge deserve to be sitting first class? At the very least, a man who has made an estimated $15.1 million in his pro career and travels just about every other week should be getting upgrades to business even premium economy.

That might be a discussion for another time, since Hoge may just want to stay a man of the people and try to blend in. Who knows?

To the airline’s credit, American did respond to Hoge’s tweet with, “Oh no, that’s not what we like to see. DM your record locator and baggage info so we can take a closer look.”

While that won’t reshaft the iron (at least not before the tour vans arrive at Harbour Town), let’s at least hope it leads to some compensation. PGA Tour pros can have any club they want repaired at a moment’s notice, but that doesn’t mean it will feel the same as it did before to those with otherworldly feel.

Nevertheless, it’s brutal ending for the 33-year-old after a pretty eventful week at Augusta — even though he did miss the cut.

Here’s to the airline taking care of Hoge for the damaged goods. And here’s to better travel luck for him in the near future — since, you know, a pro golfer sort of needs their clubs to be intact to do their job.

Nick Dimengo

Golf.com Editor