Carnoustie Golf Links, the famed Open Championship venue that hosted Francesco Molinari’s breakthrough major victory earlier this summer, is in the news this week for much more morbid reasons.
On Sunday afternoon at 12:40 p.m., the body of Scottish police officer Dean Morrison was found in the famous Barry Burn, the body of water that crisscrosses the historic links, most notably on the course’s home hole.
A body was pulled from Carnoustie’s Barry Burn.https://t.co/KlM9qbW901 pic.twitter.com/2QiM6dMlbz
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) December 17, 2018
“Dean was a highly respected officer, who was extremely well-liked and popular with his colleagues. He was thoroughly professional in his work,” Tayside divisional commander Andrew Todd said, according to the report in The Evening Telegraph. “His death is a great tragedy and he will be sadly missed by all who knew him, and we will do all we can to support them during this distressing time.”
Foul play is not suspected in the death of Morrison, officials said, but police are reaching out to the taxi driver who took Morrison to Carnoustie late on Saturday night.
The body was found the next day during a three-hour operation conducted by police, firefighters and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
“There was a crowd of people on the beach alongside the police officers. I couldn’t get close and properly see what was going on because of that,” Donna Beattie, a nearby resident of the course, said. “It took about five to 10 minutes for the police to get everyone to clear off.
“There was a coastguard out for a while so I wondered if it was a boat that capsized at first, but it doesn’t look like that anymore. It’s really sad that something like this would happen.”
Carnoustie has hosted eight Open Championships, two Senior Open Championships and one Women’s British Open. The Barry Burn is most infamous as the scene of Jean Van de Velde’s 1999 Open collapse.
