Remembered for all the wrong reasons

Golfing Disasters Part 19: Gary Moran recalls what Thomas Bjorn described as the worst day of his golfing life at last month's European Open at the K Club

Some of the game's greatest champions have had to overcome a reputation for choking before going on to be consistent winners.

Nick Price and to a lesser extent Tom Watson are multiple major winners who endured some final round flops before proving that they could perform when the heat was really on.

In contrast, Thomas Bjorn is a player who showed that he had what it took to win soon after turning professional in 1993.

Two years later he set a Challenge Tour earnings record as he won four times and topped the rankings and then in his first season on the European Tour he won at Loch Lomond and pipped Padraig Harrington for the 1996 Rookie of the Year award.

Bjorn built steadily on that success, contributed one and a half out of two points on his Ryder Cup debut in 1997 and in 2001 he put in a performance in Dubai that marked him out as a really tough nut to crack.

Tiger Woods was in the field for the Desert Classic and just a month later would win the Masters to become the first player to hold all four major titles simultaneously. It was the most dominant period of Tiger's career so far, but Bjorn was paired with him all four days at the Emirates GC and outscored him by 69-72 in the final round to win the title.

Brittle and Bjorn apparently didn't belong in the same sentenc,e but in the last four and a half years he has only won twice more in Europe and once in Japan. Not bad but not what was expected and along the way he has coughed up the 2003 British Open as recounted in this column last week, walked off after six holes of the 2004 European Open bedevilled by inner demons, faded from this year's Masters with a miserable final round of 81 and most spectacularly of all, blew last month's European Open.

Bjorn led the tournament by four shots going into the final round even though he had admitted earlier in the week that all was not well with his game. He came into the press centre after taking a share of the halfway lead and said that his golf had not been pretty for the opening rounds and that himself and his caddy could only laugh at how he had scrambled a score together. He then headed off for three hours on the range with coach Pete Cowen and probably a few words with overworked psychologist Jos Vanstiphout.

Bjorn was in for interview again after better ball striking on a windy third day gave him an eight-under aggregate and a four-shot lead. Would winning the tournament the next day kill off those demons? "With regards to last year, let's put the lid on it," answered Bjorn. "Every time I've been in the press centre this year, we've talked about it. I am in here for a good reason, because I am leading the tournament so I have to take the positives from that. But also my results have been good enough to say that's it, it's over with."

Well it wasn't over with. The very next day he endured what he called the worst day of his golfing life. The first jolt to his confidence was a drive hooked into the rough at the first and like a ship slowly taking on water, Bjorn gradually sunk into the depths with six bogies and a double before being finally submerged on the 17th where he hooked three consecutive tee-shots into the Liffey and ran up an 11. The heavens opened with a symbolic downpour as in a funereal atmosphere Bjorn took a bogey six at the last for a back nine of 48 and a round of 86.

Bjorn's fine joint-second placing at Baltusrol yesterday will have helped to heal some old wounds but for the time being he is somewhat cruelly remembered more for the tournaments he didn't win than those he did.