When it comes to the grand scheme, I'm honestly not sure which weakness is worse.
In terms of struggling with the magnitude of the moment, third-round leader Ricky Barnes could not have appeared more vulnerable. He played the front nine that Monday with two very different swings: a fluid, picturesque move that ended with the club on his left shoulder, the other plagued by a forward lurch shortly before contact, which left him off-balance and, in several instances, off-target.
It would be difficult to rationalize Barnes' bad passes as anything other than a product of frayed nerves. When he'd seemingly fallen hopelessly out of contention early on the back nine, his good swing suddenly resurfaced, which keyed his improbable comeback and had him in the hunt until the very end. Barnes' choking occurred early and ultimately cost him late, but the kid hung in there. As Strange would tell you, he's really a golfer now.
Lee Janzen, who was one of the game's best closers in his prime, gave me the best definition I've ever heard for choking: "It's when you forget to do something you'd never forget to do otherwise, because you're caught up in the moment or worried about the result."
Only the player himelf can tell you if he has actually choked, and most are loath to admit it, but some cases are a lot more glaring than others. Kenny Perry's Masters meltdown -- he led by two with two to play and lost in a playoff -- would seem to fit Janzen's description. A tempo player whose swing is best defined by a distinct pause at the top, Perry's body language and rhythm clearly changed after stuffing his approach shot at the par-3 16th.
The pause was gone, and the green jacket would soon follow.
But Perry's demise was nothing compared to that of Jean Van de Velde, whose closing triple-bogey at the 1999 British Open was a unique combination of mental and physical errors. The driver off the 18th tee, the third shot out waist-high grass, even his contemplating a fourth shot out of the Barry Burn -- it was as if the Frenchman had lost his mind.
Maybe Mickelson had his eye on the prize a little too early at Bethpage. Maybe he allowed the size of that prize to take his mind off what he should have been thinking about, which was more likely the case at Winged Foot in 2006, when his double bogey on the 72nd hole immediately registered as one of the modern era's most tragic collapses.
Three years later, we basically saw the same result with a different application. Did he choke? I don't think so, but you might. Either way, a loss like that can be real hard to swallow, contracted windpipe or not.
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