Closing Badly at the British Open

Excerpted from GUTS IN THE CLUTCH: 77 Legendary Triumphs, Heartbreaks and Wild Finishes in 14 Sports

Weather in the U.K. can be just as bad or worse than Northern California’s Pebble Beach. Some of the courses like Kingsbarns and Prestwick are perched on the ocean’s edge where it’s often blowing a gale. And like Pebble Beach, most of the links have narrow fairways, treacherous rough (in Scotland the rough often bristles with waist-high grass), deep bunkers, hazardous water, and ticklish greens. 

   Gary Player said that Carnoustie in Scotland is the toughest golf course in the world. The claret jug may be the most elusive trophy in golf, even more valued than the Masters’ green jacket. The path to victory is as thorny as a Scottish thicket, and the woes of losers are sometimes bizarre. Thumbnails of three, final-round British Open torments follow.

Don’t Bait a Bear

Doug Sanders was a poor boy from Georgia made good. Called the “Peacock of the Fairways” because of his flashy clothes, Sanders’ outgoing personality matched his wardrobe, and he used his charm to make friends with the rich and famous. Despite his short backswing and unorthodox stroke, Doug Sanders won 20 PGA tournaments, but never a major.

The closest he came was in 1970. In the most heartbreaking loss of his career, Sanders blew a two-and-a-half-foot putt on the 18^th hole for a win at St. Andrews, and the ever-dangerous Jack Nicklaus beat him in a playoff.²² As shown in this example, it was highly risky to let Nicklaus back into the game. His style was a combination of explosive shot-making and conservative management that calculated all factors-the course, his opponent and how he was playing. As a golfer, Nicklaus was both Secretariat and Einstein.²³

Aye, the Laddie’s in Barry Burn

The largely unknown French golfer Jean van de Velde led by three strokes on the final-round 18^th tee at Carnoustie. After hitting a solid drive he decided to use a long iron to the green rather than lay up. In an infamous three-dub collapse, van de Velde hit off a grandstand, into a bunker, and a dark-running brook called Barry Burn before finally getting onto the green and down. Mercy.

Despite the seven-shot triple bogey, van de Velde still got into a three-way playoff that was won by Scotland’s own Paul Lawrie who had come from 10 strokes back. Brilliant. Although added perspective on his fiasco is likely unnecessary, van de Velde could have taken six shots and double-bogeyed on the final hole of the 1999 British Open and still walked away as champion.

SPEAKING OF DOUBLE BOGEYS, Irishman Padraig Harrington came from six shots back to lead by one on the 72^nd hole of the 2007 British Open at Carnoustie. Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia, the best player on the PGA Tour who has never won a major, had a three-stroke cushion going into the final day. He faded to second place on weak putting and Harrington’s nifty ball striking, including an eagle on 14. Harrington, needing a par on 18 to clinch, seemed intent on doubling the ghost of Jean van de Velde by mishitting twice into the Barry Burn. But a clutch wedge within four feet of the cup stanched the bleeding at a double-bogey six. Suddenly, it was Garcia who needed a par on 18 to win, but he found a bunker and his pitch left an eight-foot putt that rimmed out for a tie.

    Harrington won a four-hole playoff, the final hole of which was 18. And this time he avoided the dreaded Barry Burn. Sergio Garcia, who was so close and thought he had it, was devastated. (A disqualification in the third round of the PGA for signing an incorrect scorecard added to Sergio Garcia’s 2007 woes (See “Be Careful What You Sign” in this chapter.)

A high spot of the day came when Padraig Harrington’s three-year-old son Paddy ran out to be swept up in his triumphant Dad’s arms. When that frolic was over, Harrington hoisted the claret jug and waved the Irish flag. Ah the pints lifted in Ireland’s pubs that night. Erin go bragh.

Trapped in a Sandwich Beach

Thomas Bjorn was two up in 2003 at Sandwich when his tee shot found a trap near the par-three 16^th green. His first attempt to get out hit the lip of the deep bunker, and, to the accompaniment of the spectators’ dying groans, rolled back in. The groans grew more terminal when Bjorn’s second shot repeated the first like a rewound tape. In a third-try-never-fails effort to end the ugly scenario, the ball, riding on crowd cheers, arched onto the green. Bjorn sank the putt along with his hopes with a double bogey that cost him the lead and the match.

For every fall into ruin there is almost always a corresponding ascendancy: American unknown Ben Curtis came from behind to capture his first major. He was the first American since Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open in 1913 to win a major on his first try. (See “The Caddie Wins” vignette in the “U.S. Open Sorrow and Joy” story in this chapter.)

22 http://www.dougsanders.com.bio.htm, available as of 7/27/04.

23 Courtesy of the World Golf Hall of Fame,     http:www.wgv.com/hof/members/jnicklaus.html, available as of 9/30/05

24 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/golf/397863.stm, available as of 1/26/08

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