Bailey Shoemaker, the viral golfer from this week’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur, has explained how a nerve injury was the cause of an extraordinary video of her taking over a minute to complete her swing.
The footage shows Shoemaker, 21, stood over her ball for a minute and 12 seconds, taking multiple backswings but failing to commit to the follow-through before resetting her stance and trying again.
The USC athlete has since spoken in detail about the injury in her arm, which needed surgery last October, that caused her to take so much time over her shot – but she hasn’t been met with much sympathy from the golf community.
‘I’ve been battling injury for over a year now, I’ve got some things bugging me,’ she told GOLF.Com the next day. ‘When you have nerve surgery, you aren’t in control.
‘Do you think I want to do it intentionally? Of course not. It was better today, that was the worst one yesterday. Of course, it went viral.
‘You don’t see me at home working out five hours a day, going to rehab, waking up before practice to go to rehab. You don’t see all of that.
Bailey Shoemaker has spoken out on the bizarre viral video of her playing at Augusta
Shoemaker, 21, took over a minute to take a tee shot after multiple failed swings
“Do you think I want to do it intentionally? Of course not.”
Yesterday, Bailey Shoemaker went viral for a slow play incident. Today, she explained why she is just staying focused on her recovery, and playing Augusta National tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/xNwyGsQ3S3
— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) April 2, 2026
‘A year ago, I didn’t know if I would be playing golf anymore. This was a pretty substantial injury, given it was my nerve.’
Her words didn’t win over too many people, though. Slow play is a subject golf fans feel passionate about and there were a lot of voices saying that Shoemaker needed to solve her difficulties away from the spotlight of competitive action.
‘Sounds like she’s not ready to compete without placing her competitors in a disadvantaged position vs the top players who can play faster,’ one fan said.
Another wrote: ‘This is bizarre. The attempted rationalization makes no sense. Taking too long to hit a golf shot is a penalty.
‘The reason as to why you take too long does not matter at all. If you hit the ball out of bounds, does it matter that it happened because your club face was wide open?’
A different response said: ‘Appreciate the situation. But she needs to work that out in practice, not competition.
‘Allowing this in competition takes something affecting her and forces its effects onto every other person with (and behind) her…and that’s not fair nor right.’
Shoemaker eventually missed the cut at the tournament this week.
