20 December 2011 12:14
GMT
Ian Woosnam will be forgiven for harbouring dark thoughts this summer when the 141st Open Championship unfolds at Royal Lytham & St Annes.
It was there, in that rugged corner of Lancashire, the Welshman produced one of his finest Open performances only to see his hopes of victory dashed in the cruellest way imaginable.
The year in question was 2001 and, for three days, little had gone wrong for the Welshman. He opened with rounds of 72, 68 and 67, to share the 54-hole lead with David Duval and Bernhard Langer, and looked set to move out in front on his own when he hit his opening tee shot of the final round to a couple of feet from the hole only to have his equilibrium shattered when his caddie, Miles Byrne, turned to him ashen-faced and whispered: “We’ve got one too many.”
That morning, Woosnam had been practising with two drivers and the long and the short of it was that Byrne had forgotten to remove one of them before boarding the first tee to begin the final round. It was an error which would result in a two shot penalty and effectively end the Welshman’s challenge. But for those two strokes, Woosnam would have finished second behind Duval, won £360,000 and earned an automatic return to the Ryder Cup team. Who knows, without the anguish the incidence caused, he might even have overhauled the American and won the title himself.
As it was, it cost him £218,334 and a spot on Sam Torrance’s side. Surprisingly, Woosnam did not sack Byrne that night, although they did split a couple of weeks later when the Irishman compounded his earlier mistake by turning up late for a tee time.
“That was that,” the Welshman told the Guardian in 2007. “We haven’t spoken since. His brothers, also caddies, tell me he’s happy back in Ireland working on a building site. It’s a shame he doesn’t want to return to golf because he could be a good caddie — if he improved his adding up and his timekeeping.”
In the meantime, Woosnam’s name has been added to the list of Great Open Casualties, a group including David Ayton, Andra’ Kirkaldy, Hale Irwin, Harry Bradshaw and Jean Van de Velde, all of whom lost their grip on the title once it was well within their grasp.
The Road Hole’s First Victim
Local man, David Ayton, became one of the Road Hole’s first victims, and The Open’s first casualties, during the 1885 Championship, staged over over the Old Course, St Andrews.
Ayton boarded the penultimate tee with a five shot lead but slumped to an 11, eventually finishing two strokes behind winner, Bob Martin.
The luckless Ayton hit a good drive and a solid second shot but then hit his approach shot into the Road Hole Bunker. From there, one disaster followed another. He flew the green with his fourth shot, failed to get up the slope with his fifth, hit his sixth back into the Road Hole bunker and then took a further three shots to emerge. Two putts later and his sole chance of winning the title had totally disappeared.
A Hat-trick of Whiffs
Andra’ Kirkaldy, Leo Diegel and Hale Irwin are probably the only three golfers who can claim an air shot cost them a chance to win The Open title.
Kirkaldy’s disaster struck during the final round of the 1889 Championship at Musselburgh when, tied with rival Willie Park Jnr, he made a back-handed pass at a one inch putt on the 14th hole and missed the ball altogether. Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be crucial. The pair finished tied and the following day Park won a play-off to secure his second title in three years.
Diegel’s calamitous moment came on the 72nd hole of the 1933 Open Championship at St Andrews.
The notoriously nervous American need two putts to tie Denny Shute and Craig Wood but, after rolling his first putt to two feet, missed the ball altogether with his next before holing the third to drop into a tie with Gene Sarazen and Sid Easterbrook.
Fast forward to Royal Birkdale in 1983 and a similar fate befell another American, Hale Irwin. There, on the 14th hole in the third round, he, too, completely missed his ball, sitting barely an inch from the hole, before going on to finish the Championship a single shot behind winner, Tom Watson.
Wethered Puts His Foot In It
Roger Wethered could be said to have put his foot in it, or should that be on it, when he lost the 1921 Open at St Andrews.
That year, Wethered lost out in a 36-hole play-off against Jock Hutchison, but only after treading on his ball on the 14th fairway during his third round.
That, of course, meant he had contravened Rule 18, as is now, and the penalty was enough to see him miss out on golf’s greatest prize.
Hutchison destroyed him in the play-off, beating the luckless Wethered by nine shots.
Counted Out by the Crowd
MacDonald Smith could well be described as the most unfortunate loser in Open Championship history given that his demise was down, not to his own inadequacies but, rather, the behaviour of a boisterous crowd.
Smith, a naturalised American but born and bred in Carnoustie on the east coast of Scotland, went into the final round of the 1925 Open at Prestwick with a five shot lead and extended his advantage to six before the antics of the gallery distracted him to such an extent that he plummeted to an 82 to finish three shots behind Jim Barnes and two adrift of Ted Ray and Archie Compston.
Later, the heartbroken Smith said: “I would not have lost had they (the crowd) let me swing the club.” It was a view shared by the golf correspondent from The Times who wrote: “The crowd was almost more than human flesh and blood could stand; it crushed and killed its own favourite.”
Bradshaw Hits the Bottle
Genial Irishman, Harry Bradshaw, might well have won the 1949 Open Championship at Royal St George’s but for a battle with a bottle.
The Irishman’s troubles arose when he drove into a broken bottle on the 5th hole during his second round. The Rules allowed him a free drop but, rather than waiting for this to be confirmed, he chose to play the ball as it lay, advancing it 30 yards or so, before holing out for a double bogey six.
Clearly unsettled, he went on to post a 76, eventually tying with Bobby Locke with an aggregate of 283, before losing the subsequent play-off by no less than 12 shots.
The Luck of the Draw
It is sometimes said you need the luck of the draw to win an Open Championship but Tony Jacklin certainly didn’t get it when defending his title at the Old Course, St Andrews back in 1970.
Jacklin’s game was on fire when he started his defence by racing to the turn in 29 before also carding a birdie on the 10th to move into a sizeable lead on eight under par.
However, that was as good as it got for the Englishman. Having secured pars at his next three holes, his troubles started when, disturbed by a shout of fore at the top of his backswing, he drove into a bush on the 14th. Then, at that precise moment, thunder and lightning struck, forcing officials to abandon play for the day.
The next morning Jacklin returned to complete his round but right from the start, it was evident his impetus had been lost. Dropping out of the bush, he made a six on the 14th and, when he also leaked a further two shots over the last two holes, a potential 62 or 63 had become a less remarkable 67.
Thereafter, the Englishman was becalmed. He carded a 70 and a 73 in the second and third rounds before dropping a shot at the last to close with a 76 that saw him finish fifth, a mere three shots behind Jack Nicklaus and Doug Sanders.
Van de Velde Implodes at Carnoustie
The aforementioned Doug Sanders is always cited as another one of the great Open casualties, having missed a downhill 3-foot putt on the 72nd hole that year, a putt which would have given him a one stroke victory over Nicklaus.
It was calamitous mistake no doubt, but it pales into insignificance alongside the manner in which Frenchman, Jean Van de Velde, imploded on the final hole of the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie
Van de Velde destroyed for all time the theory that we never remember who finishes second with a 15-minute horror story which almost defies description.
The simple facts are the Frenchmen came to that last hole with a three shot lead over Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard but proceeded to card a triple bogey seven before losing the subsequent play-off to the Scot.
His troubles started when he elected to hit a 2-iron for his second shot only to see it rebound off a Grandstand into deep rough on the right of the hole. The Frenchman hit his third into the Barry Burn, thought about playing it, but then chose to drop out under penalty. He hit his fifth into the bunker that guards the right of the green before mustering the last of his composure in time to get up-and-down by holing a brave 5-foot putt.