As the 1999 Open proved, expect the unexpected in golf
One of the defining elements of golf played in “the old world” is the acceptance of bad bounces as a natural, even desired part of the game.
It is perhaps the strongest connection that golf has to life in general; sure, you can plan your life and career and family as much as you want, but we all know it’s the unplanned and unexplained bumps in the road along the way that ultimately matters. And how we deal with these surprises is what defines us as human beings. Same with golf.
The Scots who invented the game believed that dealing with bad bounces from inconsistent and imperfect playing conditions was what made it so great. And that the true champions were the ones that could brush those things off, move on, and get things done.
Never is the randomness of golf more evident as when we tune into The Open Championship every year, as you no doubt are this week as the world’s best golfers return to Carnoustie, site of one of the craziest, saddest, most perplexing collapse ever. Frenchman Jean van de Velde stood on the 18th tee that Sunday in 1999 needing only a double bogey to claim the cherished Claret Jug.
Over the course of the next 25 minutes he would hit a variety of both good and bad shots, receive both good and bad bounces, make a series of OK and questionable decisions, and ultimately let the Claret Jug slip through his fingers for good.
We all know of someone who has the mindset that good bounces should be regular occurences and bad bounces should be rarer than rare. It is an interesting exercise to re-play a round in your head as you’re driving home or lying in bed. Instead of counting the good shots or the ones that got away, make note of those bounces and breaks that were either clearly good or clearly not, and see where the math ends up.
If you are objective, you will be surprised at how many good bounces you get in a typical round. In a recent round I listened both during the round and after the round about how unlucky my playing partner thought he had been. Let me see—there was the slice off of the first tee that should have ended up out of bounds but instead knicked a high branch and seemed to snag an ok lie fairly far down the right rough that enabled him to get on in two.
There was the bunker shot on 7 that sure sounded thin and skulled to me but managed to hit an upslope and check and finish just a few feet from the hole. Despite all of these, all I heard about was the downhill, sidehill lie he drew on number ten despite him driving it in the middle of the fairway. His good break/bad break tally that day was clearly in the plus column.
But in golf, as in life, we get on a roll, we start thinking the world should step aside for us and make us happy, make things easy for us. That we somehow deserve more good than bad.
Twenty four hours from now the first pairing will be teeing off in the Open Championship at Carnoustie, Scotland. It will be the start of four days of bad bounces, crappy unplayable lies, bumpy greens, and pot bunkers that seem to pop out of nowhere and grab balls rolling down the middle of fairways.
At the highest level of the golfing world there is very little difference in the ball striking ability of players. But there’s still plenty of variability and unpredictability in how grown men deal with the adversity they face on a links like Carnoustie.
The winner won’t be the one that got the best bounces. The Claret Jug will be presented to the man who didn’t unravel when the gods seemed to be against him.
That’s a good definition of justice, and the best measure of success. In golf. In life.