Chen buckles when chips are down

Golfing Disasters Part 8: Gary Moran recalls the last round demise of TC Chen in the 1985 US Open at Oakland Hills.

The history of major championship golf is littered with examples of unlikely players who grabbed the limelight on Thursday only to return to obscurity by Friday or Saturday. In the case of the 1985 US Open at Oakland Hills, TC (Tze-Chung) Chen kept the Cinderella story going all the way to Sunday, but after setting a bunch of scoring records on the way, he let it all slip away in a final round that included a stomach-churning quadruple bogey.

Chen was the 26-year-old son of a golf course superintendent from Taipei. He arrived in Detroit with a couple of modest seasons of PGA Tour experience behind him and victories in the Japanese and Korean Opens to his credit. Tom Watson, Mark O'Meara and Andy Bean were the top three on the money list the previous season. Chen ranked 100th.

It didn't take him long to get on the leaderboard. At the par five second, his three-wood approach from 240 yards pitched on the fringe and rolled 55 feet into the cup for the first albatross in US Open history. With barely more than a dozen spectators watching his group, Chen didn't instantly realise what had happened and it was left to a scoreboard operator to tell him that his ball was in the hole.

Far from getting jittery with excitement, Chen proceeded to tie the course record with a five-under-par 65 which gave him a one-stroke lead over Fred Couples. In front of a larger gallery the next day, Chen managed a solid 69 which meant that on 134 he had tied the 36-hole US Open record set by Jack Nicklaus when he won his fourth title at Baltusrol in 1980. Chen was one ahead of Andy North and Jay Haas.

It was still assumed by most observers that he would fold over the weekend, but Chen broke par again in the third round with another 69 to match the 54-hole record of 203 set by George Burns at Merion in 1981. Two strokes ahead of North, Chen looked unflappable. The rank outsider was now on the back pages in America and the front pages in Taiwan.

An early birdie in the final round got him to eight under for the tournament and four shots clear of the chasing pack.

Chen split the fairway at the 457-yard fifth and was stuck between a four-iron and a five-iron for his second. The indecision was the start of his undoing. Trying to cut in a soft four, he shoved the ball way right into heavy, wet rough. His first attempted pitch left the ball in more gnarly grass 20 yards from the green.

On his second effort, the ball popped up almost vertically and on the follow through his wedge snagged on the grass, jerked upwards and hit the ball for a second time to the left fringe! That counted as two shots plus a penalty shot so he now lay five and when he took three more to get down, his lead and his composure had evaporated. Chen bogeyed the next three holes and never led again. His final round 77 left him on level par, tied for second, one behind North. "I opened the face of the club and hit the ball soft to make the ball spin," explained Chen afterwards. "I never had hit a double before. It upset me a lot. It stayed on my mind. I had a stupid game today, but I can only blame me. Bad head."

At the start of that week, most golf fans couldn't tell you what TC stood for, but after the final round they had a new meaning that stuck. Forever more, TC would be known as Two-Chip Chen.