THE 126th OPEN: `Dumb' mistake hurts Lehman

Friday 18 July 1997 18:02 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

It would be an embarrassing mistake at any time but Tom Lehman's absent-minded blunder on the second green was magnified by occurring in the championship of which he is the holder, writes Andy Farrell. The American forgot to replace his marker, after moving it out of Vijay Singh's line, and the error cost him a two-shot penalty.

"I have not done anything dumb like that before," Lehman said. "This was a bad time." He had bogeyed the hole anyway so he ended up with a seven. Lehman responded with three birdies on the rest of the front nine, although a bogey at 17 left him at four over.

No one had spotted the champion's mistake and Lehman only realised after he had teed off at the third. "At first I thought I would be disqualified and that it would be an embarrassing walk in from there," he said.

"I had seen our referee, Tim Taylor, looking at his rules book and wondered what someone in our group had done to cause him to do that. Then I thought, `Shoot, I didn't move my mark back'. But he hadn't noticed, maybe he was just boning up on the rules. Vijay felt bad about it but I said it was not his fault."

Lehman said that it was checking with his playing partners about getting his ball, which was cut, changed which caused him forget to replace his marker. "I was mad at myself and a little ticked off at my caddie. For two of us to miss that was nearly inexcusable."

Lehman two-putted from off the green at the par-five fourth for the first of his three birdies in five holes. Then he holed from six and eight feet at the two short holes, the fifth and the eighth, to be out in 36. His only deviation from par came when he missed the green at the 17th.

The recovery allowed the defending champion to make the cut, but he is unlikely to be taking the claret jug away with him again.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in