Let’s define the term choking, as in, “Did you see what Norman did yesterday? What a choke job!” The American Heritage Dictionary defines the common choke job in relation to sports thusly: “To fail to perform effectively because of nervous agitation or tension — to have difficulty in breathing, swallowing, or speaking.” You don’t have to be an athlete to understand the feeling of The Gag;it’s universal. Anybody who’s taken an exam, made a presentation in front of peers, asked for a raise, gone to a job interview, played a Saturday morning tennis league match, or missed a two-foot putt because a quarter was on the line knows the feeling of the old gagola. Palms sweat, oft-practiced words come out all wrong. Tossing a two-ounce tennis ball above your head becomes impossible. Performing a routine, everyday act — say something intelligent, don’t pass gas, put a ball in a hole — becomes more difficult than growing wings and flying off to the south of France. You choke.
We peons choke in relative anonymity. So golf buddies mock your shaking hands. They’re assholes anyway, and besides, Johnny Miller isn’t showing your spastic twitches to millions of strangers. Jocks choke in front of thousands of vile, often besotted plebeians who just lost money due to someone’s nervous agitation. It happens all the time, which is why the expression is such a part of our everyday vernacular. Bobby Bonds, Sporting News Player of the Decade, is awful in pressure-packed post season play, batting maybe .200. Greg Norman died an awful, suffocating death that Sunday in May when he collapsed at The Masters. Jana Novotna, on the very edge of tennis immortality at Wimbledon against Steffi Graf, suddenly disintegrated in a barrage of double faults. Graf (a rare non-choker) won the tournament. Jana cried on the Queen’s shoulder.
We arrive, circuitously, at the Shakespearean tragic comedy played out on the 72nd hole of the fabled British Open, where a three-stroke lead with one hole to play was, indeed, squandered in a fashion stretching the understood boundaries of bizarre. The prevailing opinion is that poor, anonymous Jean Van de Velde rewrote the choke manual. I disagree. Van de Velde, from all appearances a refreshing fellow with all sorts of winsome personality characteristics not normally associated with pro golfers (such as a demeanor not akin to a dead person), isn’t a 10-year pro you’ve never heard of before for nothing.
Personally, I was rooting for the guy. With a perpetual bleary-eyed, what-the-fuck-am-I doing-here grinplastered on his face, he reminded me of Dudley Moore — a rakish raconteur with a self-deprecating sense of humor, not a frequent description of, say, Davis Love III. His style of golf, like many hackers, seemed to be to hit the ball as far as possible, smoke a fresh joint on every tee box, and drink lots of beer — or in this case a nice Bordeaux. My guess is this is the reason we’ve never heard of the affable Frenchman before, and why he’ll fade away into a trivia question. But a choker he’s not. An adventurous French knight perhaps, but not a choker. He didn’t dump a garden-variety wedge into a pond. He didn’t screw up anything routine or easy, our definition of choke. He just played stupid. Not on one hole, which I suppose you could call a mental choke, but steadily, for all 72 holes. His ill-advised decisions on the 72nd hole were consistent with every hole he’d played previously — with one difference. His overstuffed bag full of luck ran out. For 71 holes the man was hitting drivers all over Scotland but somehow saving par with an astonishing array of fortuitous pitches, chips, and putts.
Being a major choker myself, I die when I watch a true choke-jobola. But I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for Van de Velde. He was like a player at the $5 craps table who gets on a fantastic, ungodly sweet run, only to toss it all away on a 10-1 Hard Way bet. I wouldn’t feel sorry for him either.
I guess it’s human nature to affix blame for bad things we don’tunderstand. In this case the media and public seem fixated on the hapless caddie, a poor schlepper probably culled from a coffeehouse on the Rue de Rivoli, named Christof. This is like Noah blaming the flood on the animals, or Kevin Costner blaming some of his awful movies on his baseball glove. Look: A caddie wears ugly, white, car-wash overalls and a number around his neck, rakes sand traps, fixes divots, and carries a 70-pound bag of golf clubs on his back for an excellent reason. He’s a grunt employee. Caddying for the 175th-rated player in the world, a low ranking grunt at that. Leave poor Christof alone. He’s probably a 26-handicapper himself, hoping only for a free trip and a few sleeves of new balls for his troubles, not international condemnation for his boss’ stupidity.
The Feckless Frenchman’s the pro. He makes the decisions. That’s how he wanted to play. Had he won, he wouldn’t have deserved it. I call it a rare just outcome. Save the label of choke artiste for a great player like Norman. This was just another extremely talented but badly flawed golf ball hitter having his five minutes.
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This article appears in July 30 • 1999 and July 30 • 1999 (Cover).