Royal and Ancient

May 1, 2000
The saving grace of this disappointing work comes near the end, when Sampson finally gets around to describing the last round of the British Open held at Scotland's Carnoustie links course in 1999. In one of the most stunning collapses in a major golf tournament, the unknown Frenchman Jean Van de Velde squandered a three-stoke lead on the last hole, forcing a playoff with Paul Lawrie and Justine Leonard, which Lawrie ultimately won. Van de Velde didn't merely lose the three-stroke lead, he blew it--blasting an ill-advised drive into an adjourning fairway, hitting a second shot that bounced off the bleachers into Carnoustie's impossibly long rough and then bopping a third shot directly in the burn guarding the green. Van de Velde's play on the 72nd hole at the Open will undoubtedly be one of the most analyzed in golf history, and Sampson gives an insightful and humorous account. Unfortunately, the balance of the book is a jumbled story of past British Opens and the men who competed in them. Sampson (The Masters) seems to have run into bad luck when his original plan of incorporating the rounds of Steve Elkington, Andrew Magee and Clark Dennis into the fabric of the 1999 Open fell apart when Dennis failed to qualify for the event and both Magee and Elkington missed the cut. In scrambling to fill the void, the wit and flair Sampson brings to bear at the end of the story are largely missing from the rest of the book.

April 15, 2000
Sampson, the author of several previous works of golf history, including "The Masters" (1998), turns here to the oldest of the game's major championships, the British Open. Focusing on the 1999 tournament at fabled Carnoustie in Scotland, the text cuts between profiles of three competitors--Steve Elkington, Andrew Magee, and Clark Dennis--and flashbacks to various tournaments in the Open's 140-year history. Sampson wisely avoids a year-by-year recitation of who shot what, selecting instead key moments (Ben Hogan's triumph at Carnoustie in 1953) for in-depth discussion. Best of all, though, is the day-by-day coverage of the 1999 tournament, notable both for the horrendous playing conditions and the unbelievable last-hole collapse of Frenchman Jean Van de Velde. "Someday," Sampson notes, "the tape of Jean at the eighteenth at Carnoustie will be the Zapruder film of golf." Unlike many athletes in other sports, golfers know and respect the history of their game; Sampson effectively captures that palpable sense of the past living in the present. A fine addition to the literature of golf. ((Reviewed April 15, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)