Golfing Disasters Part 3: Gary Moran recalls how the game of golf can turn from pending glory to a disaster with one wayward shot
It's one thing to watch an established winner such as Darren Clarke throw away a tournament as he did in the 1999 European Open described in this column last week or when dropping nine shots over the final 13 holes of the MCI Heritage last weekend.
There is a different sort of fascination to seeing a player not used to the limelight trying to close out a victory that really could change his career. Neal Lancaster's efforts at the 2002 Canadian Open epitomised the genre.
Lancaster's background is more Dukes of Hazard than Duke University. He's a fast-talking country boy from Smithfield, North Carolina (pop: 8,000) who calls everybody "Cuz" and loves motor racing. He didn't come through any college scholarship and set out to play the mini-tours in 1989, aged 26, and with not much more to his name than the clothes he was wearing, the van he was driving, the clubs in the back and a $93 bankroll.
Amazingly he won a mini-tour fortune of almost $100,000 in four months and then came through qualifying school at the end of the year. Three years later he took his first lesson from LB Floyd, father of Raymond, but other than a win in a six-way play-off for the rain-shortened 1994 Byron Nelson Classic, he endured and enjoyed the career of a true journeyman, in almost annual danger of losing his card.
That was precisely the situation when he arrived at Angus Glen for the Canadian Open in September 2002. As usual he was heading towards 30-plus tournaments for the season and was outside the top-100 on the money list. What was unusual was his play for the first 71 holes. With just a single bogey and no three-putts all week, Lancaster reached 18-under par and was two shots clear of Justin Leonard and John Rollins who had already finished.
He split the final fairway with his drive and had a six-iron to the green. "I pretty much thought the golf tournament was over if I could make just one decent swing," he said later. "Made a horrible swing."
It was so horrible it finished 35 yards left of the flag, in thick rough behind a bunker. His chip failed to reach the top tier and rolled 40 feet from the flag. Not good, but two putts would end a run of 265 tournaments without a victory. Lancaster rushed the first one four feet past and pushed the return effort outside the right lip to drop into a play-off with Leonard and Rollins.
An experienced caddy would have helped at this stage but Lancaster had an excitable Canadian, Kenny Doig, on the bag. After seeing his boss drain another birdie putt during round three, Doig exclaimed "Let me get it out of the cup so everyone will see me on TV."
Hardly surprising then that Lancaster was still a bunch of nerves when he returned to the 18th tee for the play-off and greeted Leonard by shaking hands and saying "You're welcome!"
Again he pulled his approach left of the green, this time into the bunker, and again he took four more to get down. Rollins birdied and a stunned Lancaster was left to reflect on one that got away. At least he had the decency to leave us with some memorable quotes like "I guess I know how Jean-Claude van Damme feels, or whatever his name is." Jean van de Velde actually, but the experience was similar.
"I made one bogey the whole week up to the last hole and double-bogied it to lose the tournament. It's so hard for a guy like me to get in position to win and when you get there and don't do it you just feel like a total failure. I guess the nerves just took over. I folded up like a cheap suit."
