Fear and loathing for lost Vegas
Jhonattan Vegas was forced to do plenty of scrambling before he even teed off in the British Open.
The Venezuelan golfer’s wild journey to Carnoustie started last week and involved an expired visa, a seven-hour stakeout in a car outside a consulate in Houston, a hastily arranged helicopter ride across Scotland and a lost set of clubs.
“It seemed like a horror movie was happening for the past week,” said Vegas. “Even if someone tried to do something like this on purpose, you couldn’t really do it.”
In the end, Vegas played the first round of golf ’s oldest major on one of the world’s toughest courses with some borrowed clubs and a few minutes of practice.
He shot a five-over 76.
It all started last Thursday, when he realised he’d read the dates on his visa incorrectly and discovered it was out of date. That dashed any hope of getting to Carnoustie a week early for practice, but he thought he could just get another one within 24 hours and rearrange the flight.
Wrong.
His application wasn’t processed until Monday and he was told by the New York consulate that he could collect it in Houston, where he lives.
“I waited in a car in front of the consulate in Houston for seven hours, hoping for the visa to show up that day,” Vegas recounted. “It never did.”
He finally got the visa on Wednesday and flew to Glasgow, via Toronto, overnight. He’d arranged with his agent for a helicopter to take him over to Carnoustie so he could register in time, but then he encountered another problem: His clubs never made it out of Toronto.
And that was when Vegas thought someone was playing a trick on him.
“I called my caddie,” Vegas said, “and said, ‘Man, scramble some clubs. Whatever you can find’.”
The caddie located a spare set of clubs at Carnoustie and, after registering with tournament organisers, Vegas was spotted on the practice range taking the plastic off his new irons. He hit about 20 balls — “Luckily, they were going forward,” Vegas joked — and made his way to the first tee, where he exchanged some jokes with playing partners Tony Finau and Xander Schauffele.
“I don’t know how he even made contact with the ball the first couple holes,” Finau said. “Everything that he’s been through is crazy.”
Kiwis Michael Hendry and Ryan Fox had slightly better luck, despite both suffering a disappointing finish in their opening rounds. Hendry signed for a round of two-over par (73) before Fox ended the day one shot behind recording a round of three-over (74).
Both fought back after a pair of early bogeys, with Hendry making four birdies through the middle stages of the round to get back to even par.
It was his bogeys on the challenging par three 16th and the final hole of the day that he will remember most which see him in a tie for 72nd. Fox ended the day in a bad way to be tied for 90th.
The leading pack was fronted by Kevin Kisner, whose putting set him apart.
The American had only 22 putts after hitting fewer than half the fairways and finding only 50 per cent of the greens in regulation.
AP