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The Oh! Eau! Seven! Club


Named in honour of our favourite amphibious Frenchman, Jean Van der Velde, the Anyone For Tee Oh! Eau! Seven! Club is very exclusive. Sorry, but that means you can't join it. Not unless you are a tournament playing professional who, in the course of a day 'at the office', have had occasion to take off your shoes and socks, roll up your trousers and wade into cold, muddy water in the attempt to save a stroke.

Jean, of course, was no fool. Quickly realising that if he tried to play out of the Barry Burn at Carnoustie's 18th he would splatter Zut alors! This pantalon will look like nothing on earth...water and mud all over his chic last-day outfit, he decided against the shot and took a drop instead.

Indeed, as he said himself during preparation for the 2000 Open Championship at St. Andrews, "I think rolling up my trousers was a mistake because they did not look very good when I rolled them down. I should probably have taken them off or something." What professionalism! Not for a second did he lose his head or good dress sense over the little problem of trying to win a major championship! It's dedication like that which separates the pros from the amateurs.

We have therefore decided to recognise the fortitude of all professionals who are not afraid to look ridiculous in pursuit of their chosen goal, by elevating them to membership of the Anyone For Tee Oh! Eau! Seven! Club. We salute them, and we thank them. They make us feel a little better about ourselves and our games.


The 2002 Ryder Cup at The Belfry provided Oh! Eau! Seven! Club Memberships for two of the world's top ten golfers, David Toms and Jim Furyk. They played interesting variations on the 'ball in water - golfer goes after it' scenario, since each time the ball was on dry land but the golfer had to stand in water to address it.

For Jim Furyk, seen on the left emerging from the lake under a willow tree at the 8th, his stance in the water and subsequent shot must have given some credibility to David Feherty's infamous description of his swing as resembling "an octopus falling out of a tree". The shot went from terra firma on the bank into the water.

David Toms stood in the lake with his ball on the bank at the 6th, and attempted to reach the distant green over the water. He hooked the shot into the lake further up. We were lucky it was fourball format, because in foursomes it would have been his partner Mickelson's shot, and 'Lefty' would have had no problem.



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