Van de Velde’s collapse in ’99 boggles the mind

“Burns are a great feature of Carnoustie ...… (they) play an important part at both the last two holes, for one has to be carried from the seventeenth tee and another menaces the pitch on to the home green. There really is some justification for the nervous golfer who has water on the brain after a round at Carnoustie.”

— From The Golf Courses of the British Isles, as described by Bernard Darwin (1910)

What, exactly, was on the mind of Jean Van de Velde as he took off his shoes and socks and waded into the chill waters of Barry Burn, the stream that winds through the auld links at Carnoustie, following his costly third shot on what should have been the final hole of the last round of the 1999 British Open?

What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all, in the midst of what most golf fans think of as the worst collapse in the history of the game?

Yes, Greg Norman blew a 6-shot lead heading into the final round of the 1996 Masters, and even the legendary “King” — Arnold Palmer, himself — frittered away a seven-shot lead on the final day of the U.S. Open in 1966 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.

But Van de Velde led by three shots with only the 18th hole to play the last time the British Open was contested at Carnoustie, where play begins today in the 136th renewal of golf’s oldest championship.

Three 7-irons. That’s all Van de Velde really needed to reach the final green. Or even four wedges. That would have done the job, too, assuming he then could manage to two-putt. Because a double-bogey six was all that was required for Van de Velde to walk off the green holding the claret jug awarded to the winner.

Would he have been ridiculed had he played so conservatively? Would some people have poked fun at him?

Probably. But he could have held up the trophy, smiled, and said: “I finished the tournament in fewer strokes than anybody else. Does it really matter what clubs I used to hit the last few?”

Better to be remembered that way than for a colossal collapse. Even now, eight years later, it’s hard to imagine a professional golfer failing to win a tournament in which he needed only a double-bogey six on the final hole.

No matter how difficult the hole, no matter how great the pressure, wouldn’t you figure that any pro — especially one who was playing so well as to be comfortably leading a major tournament — could figure out a way to make a double-bogey?

“Carnoustie lacks the majestic beauty of Turnberry, or Royal County Down. However, a more plain, stern appearance sets the keynote for the golf which provides no let-up. Carnoustie conjures up an impression of burns, ditches and out-of-bounds … enough to strike fear.

“It is the 17th and 18th that make the knees weak and the pulse beat like bongo drums. There are many strategies to adopt at the 17th, all designed to keep the drive out of the burn that twists like a strand of spaghetti. … Having survived the 17th, the burn is again the central feature of the 18th, this time having to be carried twice and skirted down the left where out-of-bounds is an added line of defense. The drive has to be substantial, but the big decision is whether to play your second shot short of the burn in front of the green, or to go for it.”

— from Classic Golf Links of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland by Donald Steel

Van de Velde went for it.

He had been lucky with his tee shot, spraying it not merely right, but so far right that it ended up on the edge of the adjacent 17th fairway, in what turned out to be a very playable position, less than 200 yards from the green.

Van de Velde could have played it safe. He could have laid up in front of Barry Burn, then lofted a wedge on to the green with his third shot. Instead, he tried to hit a 2-iron to the green, the way Tom Watson had on that same hole when he won the first of his five British Open titles in 1975.

But his errant approach shot bounced off a grandstand and into thick rough short of the burn.

In trying to hit out of the club-grabbing grass, Van de Velde dribbled his third shot into the stream. Fortunately, he still had enough presence of mind not to try to hit his ball out of the water. Instead, he took a drop, giving himself an opportunity to still win the tournament outright by getting up-and-down.

It was not to be. He proceeded to hit his ball into a greenside bunker, from which he was — amazingly, considering the circumstances — able to blast to seven feet and sink a putt for a seven that left him in a four-hole playoff with Justin Leonard and hometown favorite Paul Lawrie, a Scotsman who’d grown up not far from Carnoustie.

Lawrie, 10 shots behind Van de Velde at the start of the day, had shot a scintillating 67 that Sunday, tying for low round in the tournament. Still, he never thought it would get him a tie for the lead.

When it did, and he went on to win the playoff, Lawrie earned a place in history. Yet the irony is that his victory already is a dim memory, while Van de Velde’s collapse is likely never to be forgotten.

[email protected]