French Impressionist Left His Mark

MEDINAH, Ill. — Jean Van de Velde arrived Monday at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport for the PGA Championship. His clubs arrived one day later. If there’s still anyone out there who thinks this is some sort of unlucky accident, then you have not been paying attention.

It was only last month at the British Open at Carnoustie where Van de Velde cemented his reputation as the most spectacular loser that golf has ever seen.

This virtually unknown Frenchman pretty much held the Claret Jug trophy for winning the British Open in his hands and then dropped it, thus earning the dubious nickname of the Claret Jughead.

He had a three-shot lead with one hole to play, but hit his drive so far right it almost landed at the 17th tee, clanked his second shot off the rail of the grandstand and bounced it backward into the rough, sent his third shot into the creek, waded into the creek but decided against it, took a penalty stroke, sent his fifth shot into a bunker, his sixth onto the green and made the putt for a seven.

He could have played it safe on the last hole, but chose not to. Van de Velde made a triple bogey on the last hole of golf’s oldest major championship, blew his lead, lost in a three-way playoff, made a joke about it and tried to put it all behind him.

There’s no way that’s going to happen. He’s way too famous now.

For instance, he recently received a letter postmarked from Scotland that had his name written on it with this address: “Southwest France.” The sender also cut out a picture of Van de Velde, socks off, pants rolled up, standing in the creek at Carnoustie, and pasted it to the front of the letter, at the end of an arrow and the hand-written message of “That’s him.”

The letter was delivered to Van de Velde two days after its postmark. And he was in Geneva.

Anyway, next for Van de Velde is the PGA Championship, which begins today at Medinah Country Club, and the bouncy Frenchman says he is ready to get on with the next stage of his professional career, whatever it may be.

First things first: Van de Velde said he is glad his clubs showed up.

“I was delighted because it’s pretty hard to play golf without your clubs,” he said.

No, but doing it the hard way would be pure Van de Velde. He knows he could have made it a lot easier on himself, maybe by hitting irons up the fairway on the 72nd hole at Carnoustie, but that wouldn’t have been sporting, would it?

Besides, it’s possible that Van de Velde is more popular in defeat than he would have been if he had won instead of Paul Lawrie. He has become a near-cult figure in golf, a ball-skulling doofus who lost everything when he had everything to gain.

It’s just that Van de Velde is so darned charming about the whole thing. And he’s making it work for him. For instance, he’s also going to play in the Masters and before that, he probably will be playing for Europe at the Ryder Cup.

And while Van de Velde likes to say that golf is only a game, that might not be a popular sentiment at the emotionally charged Ryder Cup. He may have to modify his attitude.

“Maybe I will fake an injury and play in the singles,” Van de Velde said.

“You know, if I’m on the team, it’s maybe because I earned the right to be there by the way I’m playing. And then they have trust and confidence in me. I don’t think they think that I’m a nut case.”

That point is debatable. When he kept going for it on that fateful 18th hole on that Sunday at Carnoustie, television commentators absolutely roasted Van de Velde. Most golfers felt the same way, that he should have played conservatively with such a big lead.

Van de Velde did not agree then and he still does not.

“I do think about it sometimes, but not in a bad way,” he said. “I think I have analyzed what happened there and if it happens again, then we’ll see what I do. But I don’t feel bad. I give 100% and I walked out of there with my head and my chin pretty straight.

“I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I tried to play for safety and I blew it. That’s not in my nature, so I made my choices. I made my decision.”

And, after all, it’s only golf.

“We’re just out there hitting a golf ball and here we go walking behind it and hit it again. Fair enough. It’s a big deal, but it’s not that big a deal.”

Big or not, large or small, winning or losing, Van de Velde has decided that the only way to play it is his way. That would be to enjoy life. So when his clubs didn’t show up, Van de Velde and his wife spent the day in Chicago window-shopping and dining on sushi.

The golf, well, that has its place and it just happens to be out here in the suburbs. And that 72nd hole at the British Open, that has its place too. So far, Van de Velde is uniformly cheery when questioned about how he played it, but he isn’t sure he always will be that way.

“What can I say to people who can tell me I should have done this or I should have done that? Maybe I will answer to them, ‘Well, I haven’t seen you on the tee of the 72nd hole three shots ahead.’ You know, so if you ever get that chance, I’m going to give you a quarter and you give me a phone call. That’s maybe one thing I can tell them.”