My 9 Open Championship Player Badges
This month as we all know, we should have had the pleasure of watching The Open Championship from Royal St Georges in Kent but due to the Covid19 Pandemic, the event was postponed until next year. As a consequence, I thought it would be a good time to share a few memories from the first of my two Open Championship appearances down at RSG.
It was 1993 and I was in my second year as a European Tour Professional. The weather was warm, my confidence was reasonably high and I was playing nicely. On Tuesday morning, I was on the range with my coach Stephen Rolley and we were just going through the normal routine when Nick Faldo approached me and asked if I’d care to play with him on Wednesday’s practice round! Naturally I agreed but was a little taken aback with his request. Faldo was the reigning Open Champion (having won in 1992 at Muirfield) and I couldn’t quite understand why he chose to play with me as opposed to one of his Ryder Cup buddies or someone of his own golfing stature.
Anyway, we tip up on Wednesday, I went through my normal practice routine and headed toward the first tee where Faldo and his coach David Leadbetter were standing. We went through the basic morning greetings but not a great deal of chat was had and we teed off. Steve and myself were somewhat in shock and awe of this opportunity but we just tried to remain focused on my game because that’s all that really mattered.
As the round went on, you could see the level of grind Faldo was putting into his day…it was very intense. Steve and I just tried to relax, enjoy the front row seat that we had watching Faldo’s practice. By the end of the 5 and a half hours we were on the course for, I felt that I had played really very well and I felt good going into the first Round.
Day 1 – paired with Greg Norman (AUS) & Tom Purtzer (USA).
1st hole – Evans birdie / Norman double bogey / Purtzer isn’t a part of this story!
2nd hole – Evans par / Norman birdie.
We get onto the 3rd tee, a par 3 which was playing into the wind and at the time was circa 220 yards. Norman had the honour and nearly shanked a 2 iron! His ball made it to the front edge of the green but it was a good 30 yards short of the flag. As Norman walked passed me toward his caddie Tony Novarro, he looked down at my holding a 3 iron and said “wow I got all of the 2 iron too”. I immediately thought…you cock! Do you really think I’m going to fall for that? I ripped my 3 iron to 8 feet and rolled it in for a birdie to go 2 under for the round! Norman up and downed it for a par.
I think I birdied the par 5 7th hole to go -3 for the day but the next serious issue happened at the 12th hole. At the time, I’m -3 and Norman is +1 for the round. We both drove it into the middle of the fairway with nothing more than around 80 yards to the hole. It was playing straight downwind and a difficult shot to get close. Norman was up first…he flew his lob wedge a little high, it landed about 4 feet past the hole, bounced forward and ended up around 30 ft.
It was my turn…I hit lob wedge too but it’s flight was much lower than Norman’s and I nipped it perfectly. It landed 4 feet short of the hole, took one bounce forward and span to about a foot from the hole. Norman immediately came over to my bag and pulled out my lob wedge to inspect the grooves and promptly put the club bag into the bag. He wasn’t happy, he said “these grooves can’t be legal”. I ignored his quip and I tapped in to go -4 and lead The Open. Norman 2 putted to remain +1.
He birdied the 13th to get back to par and he had the honour at the par 5, 14th. The drive was proper smelly because it was a narrow fairway, the wind was hard out of the left and the Out of Bounds fence runs all the way down the right of the hole. Norman smothered a driver left and found the semi rough. I flushed my driver straight down the middle.
Norman smothered a 3 wood left into the rough again and I flushed 3 iron straight down the middle. Norman hits a 4 iron for his 3rd shot and comes up short right of the green. I clip a 9 iron to eight feet.
The moment that followed taught me one of the greatest lessons in golf. Norman had played really poorly for the first 13 holes and was fortunate to be at level par. Nothing about his game was on point or sharp. Suddenly, he knifed his pitch shot from about 25 yards, it bounced twice, hit the flagstick hard and the ball dropped into the hole. Bang, birdie! Having played the hole horribly, having not executed one shot properly, he made birdie and gets into the red for the first time of the tournament. He literally bounced to the 15th tee like he was suddenly in charge of his destiny.
You can guess what happened next can’t you. I missed from 8 feet and suddenly, there was only three shots between us.
15th hole Norman – driver, 5 iron, 12 feet and in for birdie. I make bogey.
16th hole Norman – 7 iron to 40 feet and in for a birdie. I make par.
17th hole Norman – driver, 7 iron, 4 feet and in for birdie. I make par.
18th We both up and down it from the front right bunker for par.
Norman 66 leading / Evans 67 tied 5th.
“How the hell did that happen” I asked myself? How did he beat me? One lucky chip in at 14 changed his whole round, his demeanour and indeed his whole tournament.
After the round, we were both interviewed and I was asked two questions:
Q1 – Can you win The Open? – There are circa 150 guys here all trying to win The Open, if I continue to hit the ball as well as I am and I stay focused, there’s no reason why I couldn’t.
Q2 – At the PGA Championship t Wentworth earlier this year, you told us that your Father was suffering with Cancer. How is your Father doing? – Well obviously it’s a very difficult time but I’m sure my round today will give him something to feel positive about.
Back in those days, the ONLY people permitted to enter the Locker Rooms were the Players. No Caddies, no Managers, only Players. I arrive Friday morning, walk up to my locker where my bag is standing and on top of it is a Sun newspaper. I’m like…WTF is this doing here? You see I never read papers during tournament play, I was normally just focused on playing. Having had a good day on Thursday, I thought I’d have a look to see what the Sun Newspaper had to say about a Brit who was near the top of the leaderboard. To my horror, from the top to the bottom of the back page in big bold words read… I WILL WIN THE OPEN FOR MY DYING DAD.
Can you imagine what that did to me? I was mortified, extremely angry and very upset. I managed to get to a phone and called my Dad immediately and told him that I’d never said those words and that this was total BS. He told me not to worry and focus on my golf but how in the hell could I do that? More to the point, who put that newspaper on my golf bag?
I teed it up a couple of hours later but I just wasn’t there. My head couldn’t remove the nonsense that I’d read and the impact it had had on me mentally was so destructive that I just didn’t want to be there. Greg Norman didn’t look at me, didn’t say play well on the 1st tee, nothing. This was war. A third of the way around, Norman turned to Purtzer walking up the 7th hole and told him that he thought my golf game was far too slow and he was going to report me to officials. Now anyone who ever saw me play golf would tell you that I’m one of the fastest players out there. I hate slow play but Norman said it just loud enough for me to hear him.
The war was over, I was just like, get me the hell out of here. And that was me. I was done. I shot 77 and missed the cut and went home. I was just a kid that had never really been in that type of arena, a kid that hadn’t won anything as a Pro and there I am playing with one of the all-time great golfers and thinking… he is one of the biggest cocks I’ve ever had to endure on a golf course.
Just to make my life that much better, Greg Norman went on to win The Open with 66, 68, 69, 64 and my lesson was learnt in totality….
SOME of the best players in the world (at most sports) create a theatre for their own success. Their egos have no room for conscience, their actions (be they reprehensible or not) are always justified in their own eyes and their success is the only thing that matters. They choose to remember everything through rose tinted spectacles and they do no wrong.
There are of course other World Class athletes that are good people through and through. I’ve been lucky enough to play with many of them. Langer, Lyle, Couples, Watson but on this occasion, this being the 3rd and 4th time having played with Greg Norman, I realised that he fitted into a category that I never wanted to be a part of.
Did I respect his achievements as a golfer? Yes of course I did. Did I want to be like him as a person? Not in a million years. The cost of his type of success wasn’t worth it in my eyes…maybe that’s the reason why I never won a golf tournament? Maybe I was never prepared to be selfish enough to achieve success on that level? Who knows the answer? Maybe my shrink will be able to tell me one day… but my memories of The 1993 Open Championship had such a negative impact on my life, and then when my father died only 3 months later, professional golf and success were far from the most important thing in my life.