Roe is me
Alistair Tait reports on the heavy punishment dished out to the English practical joker after he signed the wrong scorecard
There are times in life when the punishment does not fit the crime – when life simply isn’t fair. That was the case at Royal St George’s yesterday when the Open Championship was robbed of one of its most colourful characters in arguably the most bizarre rules incident in 132 years of playing The Open. Sheffield’s Mark Roe was disqualified from the tournament after it was discovered that he had not exchanged scorecards with playing companion Jesper Parnevik on the first tee.
Roe returned a four-under-par 67 to be leader in the clubhouse and just two shots off the lead held by Tiger Woods. Roe triple-checked the card Parnevik handed him, signed it, and then went off to do TV interviews only to be told later that he had, in fact, signed the wrong scorecard. Both players had to be disqualified for contravention of Rule 6-6d, which states that you cannot sign for a score on a hole than the one you actually took.
In a bizarre twist of fate that Roe will take no pleasure in whatsoever, almost the same thing happened to Phillip Price and Australian Stuart Appleby. The only difference was that the recorders spotted the mistake before both players left the scoring hut, which means they play in today’s final round while Roe will watch it at home with his family.
David Pepper, chairman of the R & A’s championship committee, said he had no recourse but to disqualify both players. “There is a decision, 6-6D/4, which explains exactly similar circumstances to this particular one. Sadly, this is something that has happened from time to time.
“I think sometimes the punishment might appear too harsh, but one has to down and write a set of rules and you have to abide by those rules.”
Roe was close to tears yesterday, but did himself and the game of golf a great deal of credit by taking responsibility for a simple clerical error that might have cost him the chance of winning the most coveted trophy in golf.
“It’s unfortunate that no one noticed, but there’s no one to blame but myself,” he said. “You can’t apportion any blame. In the end I am responsible for exchanging my scorecard with Jesper. We didn’t do that. The individual [scorer] that’s there is only doing his job. It’s an honest mistake.”
Roe has won three tournaments on the European Tour, but has never finished higher than 16th in The Open. The 40-year-old is the European Tour’s biggest practical joker, but he is also a keen collector of golf memorabilia and a traditionalist. Not many more players in the field would have coveted the title more than Roe, however, he refused to dwell on what might have been.
“I won’t look at this in a monetary sense. There’s no point. These things happen. The Rules of Golf are there to protect the game of golf. Whether I had won £700,000 or £70,000 is irrelevant, because I don’t get a chance to play.
“I’ll sit and watch the tournament with my family. There will be something inside of me that will just be saying, ‘I wonder. What could have happened?’ I’ll wonder for the rest of my life what could have happened tomorrow because I know the way I stood up today. It’s something we will never know.”
Many colourful characters have contended the Open Championship, but probably none more colourful than Roe. He is a breath of fresh air in an age of golfing automatons.
When Greg Norman criticised the younger players earlier this week for not showing more of their character, he could have held Roe up as an example.
At age 40, Roe no longer qualifies as one of England’s young guns, but the young players could take a leaf out of Roe’s book if they want to fulfil Norman’s wish.
Roe is the European Tour’s ultimate prankster. No one is safe when the Sheffield professional is around, whether it’s on the practice ground, in restaurants, or in the privacy of their hotel rooms.
Roe’s antics on the practice ground are legendary. Given that his attention span lasts just a little longer than a nanosecond, Roe often finds himself bored halfway through his bucket of balls.
Not content with trying to put dents in the metal yardage markers, Roe then turns to trick shots and chipping balls towards unsuspecting friends. If you want to find out how to hit a golf ball straight at the 250-yard marker, then see Nick Faldo. If you want to discover how to get a plugged ball to pop straight up in the air and hit it with a baseball swing in the same motion, then Roe is your man. Any European Tour golfer who find a ball rolling gently across his feet as he hits balls on the range usually knows who the suspect is: Mark Adrian Roe.
There was a time on the European Tour when the dinner companions from hell included Roe and former European Tour player Robert Lee.
It didn’t really matter what was on the menu; it didn’t take long for the bread rolls to start flying when those two were sitting down to eat. The only problem was that it didn’t take long for things to get out of hand.
Lee, now a TV commentator, roomed with Roe on Tour and the pair took perverse pleasure on winding each other up. One time Roe aimed a bowl of pasta sauce at Lee only for it to end up on a very expensive dinner jacket of a nearby diner. That little prank cost Roe £300 to replace the jacket.
Roe spent a lot of time redesigning hotel rooms in his early days. Not his own rooms mind you, but those of his friends. Russell Claydon once returned to his hotel to find that the double bed he was looking forward to stretching out on was no longer there. Roe and friends had dismantled the bed and moved it to another room.
Barry Lane once arrived home late to his hotel room to find that none of the lights worked. Lane called for an electrician to fix the problem. It took the tradesman half an hour to discover that all the light bulbs had been removed. Roe had been in earlier and had taken them out to his own hotel room.
Roe went through a rough time in the mid-1990s when he split up and eventually got divorced from first wife Jane, at one point going upstairs to the attic and putting a shotgun in his mouth but deciding not to pull the trigger. He remarried second wife Julia in 1998 and the pair have twin daughters in Alexandria and Emily who were born in 2000.
He has settled down considerably in the meantime, but he still has a keen sense of humour, as he proved when he joked about the reason he and Parnevik failed to exchange cards.
“To be perfectly honest, I was distracted by Jesper’s outfit once again. I simply couldn’t believe the colour of his trousers.”
The irony is that Mark Roe has been playing practical jokes on people all his life. Yesterday the joke – albeit a sick one – was on him.
20 July 2003
Alistair Tait reports on the heavy punishment dished out to the English practical joker after he signed the wrong scorecard
There are times in life when the punishment does not fit the crime – when life simply isn’t fair. That was the case at Royal St George’s yesterday when the Open Championship was robbed of one of its most colourful characters in arguably the most bizarre rules incident in 132 years of playing The Open. Sheffield’s Mark Roe was disqualified from the tournament after it was discovered that he had not exchanged scorecards with playing companion Jesper Parnevik on the first tee.
Roe returned a four-under-par 67 to be leader in the clubhouse and just two shots off the lead held by Tiger Woods. Roe triple-checked the card Parnevik handed him, signed it, and then went off to do TV interviews only to be told later that he had, in fact, signed the wrong scorecard. Both players had to be disqualified for contravention of Rule 6-6d, which states that you cannot sign for a score on a hole than the one you actually took.
In a bizarre twist of fate that Roe will take no pleasure in whatsoever, almost the same thing happened to Phillip Price and Australian Stuart Appleby. The only difference was that the recorders spotted the mistake before both players left the scoring hut, which means they play in today’s final round while Roe will watch it at home with his family.
David Pepper, chairman of the R & A’s championship committee, said he had no recourse but to disqualify both players. “There is a decision, 6-6D/4, which explains exactly similar circumstances to this particular one. Sadly, this is something that has happened from time to time.
“I think sometimes the punishment might appear too harsh, but one has to down and write a set of rules and you have to abide by those rules.”
Roe was close to tears yesterday, but did himself and the game of golf a great deal of credit by taking responsibility for a simple clerical error that might have cost him the chance of winning the most coveted trophy in golf.
“It’s unfortunate that no one noticed, but there’s no one to blame but myself,” he said. “You can’t apportion any blame. In the end I am responsible for exchanging my scorecard with Jesper. We didn’t do that. The individual [scorer] that’s there is only doing his job. It’s an honest mistake.”
Roe has won three tournaments on the European Tour, but has never finished higher than 16th in The Open. The 40-year-old is the European Tour’s biggest practical joker, but he is also a keen collector of golf memorabilia and a traditionalist. Not many more players in the field would have coveted the title more than Roe, however, he refused to dwell on what might have been.
“I won’t look at this in a monetary sense. There’s no point. These things happen. The Rules of Golf are there to protect the game of golf. Whether I had won £700,000 or £70,000 is irrelevant, because I don’t get a chance to play.
“I’ll sit and watch the tournament with my family. There will be something inside of me that will just be saying, ‘I wonder. What could have happened?’ I’ll wonder for the rest of my life what could have happened tomorrow because I know the way I stood up today. It’s something we will never know.”
Many colourful characters have contended the Open Championship, but probably none more colourful than Roe. He is a breath of fresh air in an age of golfing automatons.
When Greg Norman criticised the younger players earlier this week for not showing more of their character, he could have held Roe up as an example.
At age 40, Roe no longer qualifies as one of England’s young guns, but the young players could take a leaf out of Roe’s book if they want to fulfil Norman’s wish.
Roe is the European Tour’s ultimate prankster. No one is safe when the Sheffield professional is around, whether it’s on the practice ground, in restaurants, or in the privacy of their hotel rooms.
Roe’s antics on the practice ground are legendary. Given that his attention span lasts just a little longer than a nanosecond, Roe often finds himself bored halfway through his bucket of balls.
Not content with trying to put dents in the metal yardage markers, Roe then turns to trick shots and chipping balls towards unsuspecting friends. If you want to find out how to hit a golf ball straight at the 250-yard marker, then see Nick Faldo. If you want to discover how to get a plugged ball to pop straight up in the air and hit it with a baseball swing in the same motion, then Roe is your man. Any European Tour golfer who find a ball rolling gently across his feet as he hits balls on the range usually knows who the suspect is: Mark Adrian Roe.
There was a time on the European Tour when the dinner companions from hell included Roe and former European Tour player Robert Lee.
It didn’t really matter what was on the menu; it didn’t take long for the bread rolls to start flying when those two were sitting down to eat. The only problem was that it didn’t take long for things to get out of hand.
Lee, now a TV commentator, roomed with Roe on Tour and the pair took perverse pleasure on winding each other up. One time Roe aimed a bowl of pasta sauce at Lee only for it to end up on a very expensive dinner jacket of a nearby diner. That little prank cost Roe £300 to replace the jacket.
Roe spent a lot of time redesigning hotel rooms in his early days. Not his own rooms mind you, but those of his friends. Russell Claydon once returned to his hotel to find that the double bed he was looking forward to stretching out on was no longer there. Roe and friends had dismantled the bed and moved it to another room.
Barry Lane once arrived home late to his hotel room to find that none of the lights worked. Lane called for an electrician to fix the problem. It took the tradesman half an hour to discover that all the light bulbs had been removed. Roe had been in earlier and had taken them out to his own hotel room.
Roe went through a rough time in the mid-1990s when he split up and eventually got divorced from first wife Jane, at one point going upstairs to the attic and putting a shotgun in his mouth but deciding not to pull the trigger. He remarried second wife Julia in 1998 and the pair have twin daughters in Alexandria and Emily who were born in 2000.
He has settled down considerably in the meantime, but he still has a keen sense of humour, as he proved when he joked about the reason he and Parnevik failed to exchange cards.
“To be perfectly honest, I was distracted by Jesper’s outfit once again. I simply couldn’t believe the colour of his trousers.”
The irony is that Mark Roe has been playing practical jokes on people all his life. Yesterday the joke – albeit a sick one – was on him.
20 July 2003
