Faldo and Rose at loss to explain England’s drought
Perhaps Sir Nick Faldo thought this was the only way an Englishman would ever get his hands on the Claret Jug again. Certainly the three- time champion’s comical “theft” of the famous trophy after teeing off on the first tee this week seemed grimly appropriate on the 25th anniversary of his last Open victory.
The R& A granted Faldo permission to play a practice round ostensibly because it is his 60th birthday next week. However, the governing body did so also in the knowledge that none of his countrymen have managed to prevail in the game’s oldest major since 1992, when Faldo won for the second time at Muirfield.
The quarter- century void for St George i s one of the more curious anomalies in golf, considering the fact it has toasted three other majors in the intervening period, as well as two world No 1s and three other players who cracked the world’s top five.
Faldo inevitably had to answer the impossible question after completing his trip down memory fairway. He was keen to discuss his merry jape, which featured him putting the Jug up his shirt while running down the fairway before having his picture taken with it by his family.
“I can do whatever I want, I’m 60 now,” he said. Alas, he could not throw any light on England’s shortfall.
“Let’s just say I’m very surprised that no Englishmen have won an Open in 25 years,” he said.
Faldo could have won it t wice more himself. Only Greg Norman’s genius denied him the next year at Sandwich, while in 1996, he was three shots off Tom Lehman. Since then, there have been t wo runner- up placings ( Ian Poulter in 2008 and Lee Westwood 2010) and a number of other close calls. One of the most remarkable was Justin Rose’s fourth place as a 17- year- old amateur in 1998 at this very venue and as the highestranked Englishman coming in here — as world No 12 — it was again apt that he enjoyed nine holes with Faldo.
Rose does not feel the barren spell has yet become, as he says, “a thing”.
“It’s not as if it’s in the same league as no British males winning at Wimbledon for 77 years or whatever it was,” Rose said.
“And it’s not got to the stage where it could actually be called an obstacle for an Englishman winning an Open. Paul [ Lawrie], Darren [ Clarke] and Rory [ McIlroy] have all won Claret Jugs for the UK since Nick’s last one. Of course, it would be great to do it for England, though.”
That chip- in on the 18th here 19 years ago gave Rose his only top- five finish and despite his US Open win in 2013 and his Olympic gold last year, it remains one of the most famous images of him. And Rose was delighted to find it has been immortalised in a Lego video on YouTube.
“That was the moment when you can show your children, my kids are 5 and 8 and my nephew is 3,” Rose said. “You see how impressed they are that it’s an actual Lego scene and that’s how you know it was a cool achievement.”
In truth, Rose has been trying to stage the sequel for two decades.
“It is disappointing and there is no real reason for it,” Rose said. “I feel now, though, at this stage of my career I’ve sort of somewhat proved that it wasn’t a flash in the pan, so I can come back to the Open a little freer than I could for a number of years.”
Tony Jacklin, who i s the last Englishman to win an Open on English soil, believes pressure gets to the home golfers.
“Naturally the Open is the one they most want to win as it’s in Britain and this just makes it that bit more stressful for them,” he said.