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EYEWITNESS 1
NARRATOR I
Peter Alliss
"First off, when Van de Velde arrived on the tee and I saw him pulling driver I said, 'Uh oh, not a good idea.' Then when the camera pulled back and I saw his ball was clear of the water on the right, I breathed a sigh of relief because he got away with it. On the second shot, he made a poor decision, and he was with a very inexperienced caddie, which was unfortunate. Van de Velde has been reported as saying he'd do it again, go for the green on the second shot, get the free drop, chip it on the green... da da da. Hmmm.
"Anyhow, it was an unlucky second; it ricocheted back into a dreadful place, and that is when he started to lose it. He hit it into the water and then the crowd started going hysterical. You know those pictures of his wife? She seemed to be laughing but of course it was hysteria. Those were not tears of joy. And when he started checking out his ball in the water, everyone was thinking: What the hell is he doing? It was getting dark, it was a very strange atmosphere. It was all sorts of gloom and doom. The ball was certainly in a foot of water and I said, 'Well, his brain has departed with the fairies into the woods.' His golfing brain had gone. Plus the tide was coming in and suddenly the ball was in 18 inches of water. He miraculously holed the putt for the playoff. I heard he broke down in the clubhouse.
"Paul [Lawrie] never got any recognition for winning it. It was overshadowed by the wildness of what happened. I still believe it was one of sports' biggest tragedies.
"What annoyed me is that people criticized me because they thought I was making fun of him. It was most certainly the saddest thing I've ever commented on. Such emotional sadness, such distress. It was, indeed, a great moment in television, and in sport, but a very sad one also. I felt sorry for him then. I still do today."
