You may also remember me wistfully hoping that that weekend was the warm up act for a spectacular summer of golf. Well I hope you watched the golf last weekend because it was unparalleled, mesmerising and quite simply the best golf contest displayed in a major Championship, bar none. When you have Jack Nicklaus saying he had the pleasure of watching every shot and that 2016 Open Sunday’s duel was even better than the legendary ‘Duel in the Sun’ you know you have watched something very, very special.
To shoot 63; on a Sunday, in the final pairing of the Open Championship, to win your first Major Championship after starting with a bogey, is unprecedented. We saw twenty years ago at the Masters what one player could do to the other if they really turned the heat on, watching Faldo beat Norman was as uncomfortable as it was enthralling. Michelson could not have believed that he could be 5 under after ten holes and to only have levelled the tables. If that was hard to stomach imagine actually throwing your best at an opponent to watch him come back at you and hit harder.
And Michelson is one of the hardest hitters out there, to shoot a bogey free round of 65, a complete gentleman, who probably didn’t deserve to lose, lost to the finest Open final round ever played. In the words of Nicklaus, Stenson played ‘one of the greatest rounds (he) has ever seen.’ Ever, and Jack has a few of them in his memory banks.
Another interesting side fact is that Michelson started five shots back of the lead in 2013, shot a five under 66 and won by three shots. To guess who…. Stenson. Stenson had a score to settle, a reckoning needed to occur and we watched it all. Ten birdies, two bogeys and six pars, more than settled the score.
You may have heard the name Gareth Lord over the weekend. If you listened to Stenson’s presentation speech you will have definitely heard the name. In 2013 Stenson asked Lord if he would consider caddying, Lord said yes and then something just short of alchemy occurred between the two of them. Stenson was still recovering from the Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme fraud where he swiftly lost over eight million dollars of his earnings. The two that year promptly went on to win the Fedex Cup and the Race to Dubai in the same season. Pocketing over twelve million pounds in three months. With the caddy getting the customary ten percent, not too shabby.
Now I know Gareth, have known him for over twenty years. We went to the same university in the States and played on the same team. A more likable, smoker, gambler, partyer you will not find. He possesses a brilliant sense of humour and a strange ability to fall asleep literally, in the middle of a party on the floor, with the music at full tilt. He is extremely generous with his time and money. Not a great combination for somebody who has just had a windfall of over one million pounds. Definitely not the usual personality traits to be found around a Swede called the “Iceman”.
Those around him worried also about Gareth becoming a resident of Monaco, not because of the tax haven status but because the stakes are very high in that neck of the woods. It’s not difficult to squander a million pounds there.
So when I heard, last night, about the bet which occurred eighteen months ago it really tickled me. The bet, one can only imagine came about from Henrik nagging Lordy to stop smoking, is as follows; if Henrik wins a Major, Lordy has to quit smoking.
What caught Lordy by surprise was when Henrik said to him on the seventh, “I hope you’re enjoying that cigarette, it’s going to be one of your last!” And because of Stenson’s belief, talent and hard work we got to see the greatest display of tournament golf, ever in a final round, Gareth smoked his last cigarette at 11.59pm on Sunday.
He must have woken up on Monday morning gasping for a cigarette, considerably wealthier and was inside the ropes, inside the action most importantly part of the team which won the 2016 Open Championship. In the long run that’s a fabulous trade off.
The people closest to Gareth can’t believe that it’s going to happen, but if the respect of your boss and quite possibly your job depended on it that’s motivation enough. Would you want Henrik Stenson questioning you why you have broken your word?