The British Open returns to Carnoustie Golf Links this week for the first time since Jean Van de Velde's epic collapse in the 1999 Open. Van de Velde's triple bogey on the 18th hole, when all he needed was a double bogey or better to win the championship, is remembered as one of biggest chokes in golf history.
It's unlikely we'll see another Van de Velde-type meltdown at Carnoustie this year, unless of course Phil Mickelson has what's deemed to be a comfortable lead with only a few holes to go. For Mickelson's sake (and his sanity) he had better hope he got the choking out of his system at last weekend's Scottish Open.
The names Paul Lawrie (who won at Carnoustie in '99) and Van de Velde will likely come up a lot this weekend, but the most talked about golfer no matter how he performs will as usual be Tiger Woods. Tiger has won three British Open titles in his career, including the last two held at St. Andrews in 2005 and Royal Liverpool last year. Woods' first Open championship also came at St. Andrews in 2000, but he may be hard-pressed to add a fourth Open title to his long list of accomplishments at Carnoustie. Dubbed one of the hardest courses in the world, Carnoustie gave Woods fits back in 1999 when he finished at 10-over par, four strokes back of the leaders.
The last person not named Tiger Woods to win the British Open was Todd Hamilton in 2004. Since his improbable win Hamilton hasn't won another tournament and he's failed to even crack the Top 35 in another major. In other words he has almost zero chance of repeating his 2004 magic at Carnoustie. The real challengers to Woods will likely be the usual leaderboard fodder like Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els. Those four have combined to win 10 majors, but only Els has claimed the British Open when he won at Muirfield in 2002. Back in 1999 at Carnoustie, Furyk was the best of the four when he shot an 11-over par to finish five shots back. Els finished eight strokes back at 14-over par, while both Mickelson and Singh missed the cut.
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