In a September 2025 appearance on GOLF’s Subpar podcast, PGA Tour pro-turned-analyst Johnson Wagner detailed his best and worst shot recreations of the year. Golf Channel viewers may remember Wagner’s pick for the worst — an attempt to chip cross-handed, which he skulled 60 yards over the front of the green during a PGA Championship segment at Quail Hollow.
“It was humiliating,” Wagner said on Subpar. “I had my brother, wife, son, all his friends were out there watching, and it was — it’s brutal to do something like that on live television.”
This week, Wagner returned for another Subpar guest appearance, and the conversation turned once again to Wagner’s embarrassing on-course moments. But this time, a shot from the Open Championship at Royal Portrush was top of mind.
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“This wasn’t really a recreation,” Wagner told hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “It was early in the week, I think it was Wednesday, and it’s like, go out there and highlight some spots.”
Wagner found a nice gap in play after a group that included Jordan Spieth and Wyndham Clark and decided to start rolling.
“Royal Portrush 16, the par-3 with the, it’s barranca down to the right, just this massive hillside, and our air time is still during the day over there and so there’s a lot of people on the golf course playing,” Wagner said. “I think it was Jordan Spieth and Wyndham Clark were coming through 16 but there was nobody behind him for like 30 minutes so I knew I could fit it in this time slot.
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“So as soon as they got off the green, I walked down there, tossed the ball, and the grandstand had been packed behind the green because of Spieth and Wyndham, but as soon as they got off the green, people started exiting. And so they’re all exiting out and I talk about this thing on the hillside and I’m like, just don’t chunk it, just don’t chunk it. And I catch it square in the middle of the forehead.”
Wagner said he doesn’t like having to yell ‘fore’ because of his microphone, but luckily a marshal did it for him.
“People in the grandstand, they were like, oh my God, make him stop, make him stop,” he said. “And so then I had to go up and talk about this little bathtub-like thing on the left side where you wanna hit it, and meanwhile my son’s with me and he’s just like, off camera he’s got the biggest smile on his face that he had that entire night. It was just, it was disastrous and it could have, like, that’s the only time I almost really could have killed somebody.”
For more stories from Wagner, including the details of his new role with CBS, check out the full episode of Subpar below.
