1999 British Open - Van de Velde - 3rd Round Recap

CARNOUSTIE Carnoustie, Scotland (UK)
They call it "CarNASTY" or "The Bear". Its long. Its narrow. Its slippery. Its subject to strong winds and horizontal rain. Its not fair. It can be your worst nightmare, right Jean Van de Velde?
The great challenge at Carnoustie is the ever changing nature of the course. There is no such thing as an easy hole at Carnoustie, and the most difficult are among the fiercest to be found anywhere. With the wind against, a stream known as Jockies Burn comes into play on four of the first six holes, the infamous Barry Burn giving the course its famous finish.

[@Dogman02]

Jesus, the foreshadowing in this is creepy

[@DanielSong39]

Van de Velde had a point, though. The fairways were so narrow that anything you hit would end up in the rough, might as well be closer to the hole. He didn't have to change the game plan until the 72nd hole. Actually I sometimes wonder why the caddie doesn't make most of the decisions for the golfer. You would expect the golfer to be under tremendous amount of pressure and have trouble thinking straight. The caddie is not under the same kind of pressure and can be completely focused on the strategy and might be in a better position to make decisions.

[@Mitjitsu]

His caddy hadn't been doing the job for very long.

[@DanielSong39]

@@Mitjitsu With a 3 shot lead though, you can pick anyone from off the street and they would know that the strategy is to play the second shot short of the green with a short iron, hit a pitch shot 20 feet left of the pin, then two putt for bogey to win by 2

[@Mitjitsu]

@@DanielSong39 A caddy is only on 7%. Not to mention he couldn't have predicted what happened on the second shot. Worst case scenario he hits it in the burn; takes a drop and two putts for a 6.

[@DanielSong39]

@@Mitjitsu There was OB left, also if you slice it into the burn you're in the thick rough

[@Mitjitsu]

@@DanielSong39 He already sliced it bad enough to hit it into the stands. It would take an even worse shot to go OB on the left. I stood at the location myself in 07 to see what shot he was faced with and he had an acre of room to lay up on the left, and could easily have left it 50-100 yards short of the burn if he really wanted to be conservative, which would have left an easy pitch into the middle of the green.