Before we let Jean de Barefoot get back to his mystery disease and his vineyards, there’s a story that
Henry Longhurst included in his final account of what came to be called the Coronation Open, Hogan’s victory in 1953, though the kingly reference was not to the Hawk, that bears repeating. It seems, if Henry’s account is correct, that Jean has a predecessor.
It concerns the finish of a Monsieur
Pelissier. We pick up the competitor’s tour of the final hole from the fairway.
“His second, a superb three-iron from a bunker, soared over the last green and lodged under the fringe of the border. A Walker Cup selector searching his limited French for “stroke and distance,” could only get as far as
quartre and
cinq, so Pelissier decided to play it.
“If I play right ‘anded,” he said, “I stay in the geranium. So I take a de blastaire and I play left ‘anded. It is a shot teach me by
Auguste Boyer. I ‘it it – and it go out of bound.” (The shot, in fact, carried a full 80 yards, narrowly missing a public telephone kiosky.)
“I drop another. It drop in the same ‘ole. I ‘it it out and then I get down in a chip and putt. If ‘ogan do that, all the people they go ‘prrrr.’ “
Never a dull moment! concluded Henry. And that’s the way it was, July 12, 1953.
Jean Van de Velde on his infamous meltdown on the final hole at Carnoustie in 1999: “I have nothing to be sad about. The ending, fine, who would want an ending like that? In life you have a glass in front of you, in my case a glass of red wine, is it half empty or is it half full? Especially if you drank the first half, what are you going to be sad about?”
