Top 10 Major Meltdowns

1

Jean Van de Velde

1999 Open Championship,

Carnoustie

After 71 holes Van de Velde, now HK Golfer’s own playing editor following his recent relocation to the SAR, was leading golf’s most important championship by three shots. A double bogey at Carnoustie’s venomous 18th would see him as the first Frenchman to lift the Claret Jug since Arnaud Massey achieved the feat in 1907. But as we all know, it didn’t quite work out like that.

            Here’s what happened. Electing to take driver off the final tee, Jean was a touch fortunate to find dry land, having narrowly skirted the meandering Barry Burn. He would find that hazard before long, however. His next shot, with a 2-iron, hit a tiny rail on the top of the greenside grandstand, bounced backwards 30 yards and then cannoned off the side of the burn and into thick rough. Having played two, but in a terrible lie in knee-high grass, Jean’s effort to find the putting surface came up short, his ball sinking to the bottom of the aforementioned burn.

            As if that wasn't enough, Van de Velde almost compounded his growing list of errors when he rolled up his trouser legs, stepped into the chilly, shin-deep water fed by the Firth of Tay and contemplated playing a ball that was underwater. He finally took a drop in the rough and hit in the bunker. Craig Parry, also in the sand in a more conventional two shots, holed his shot and offered Van de Velde one last hope. "What about you following me into the hole?" Parry said.  Sadly it wasn’t to be, but he managed to blast out to seven feet and somehow summoned enough courage to make the putt for a triple bogey and a playoff berth alongside eventual champion Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard.

            What makes Jean’s disaster so unique is that there is no correct answer to the question he faced before pulling that infamous 2-iron from the bag. As he himself correctly points out, the “easy” chip back to the fairway was a shot from rough which needed to be aimed at the Out of Bounds on the left – and therefore potentially disastrous. Many would argue that the play into the grandstand, deliberate or not, was smart and was simply met with outrageous misfortune. Whatever: the result was some of the most gripping golf coverage ever aired, with a truly likeable character sadly falling at the final hurdle.