When the Open Championship gets under way at Carnoustie on Thursday, Jean Van de Velde might be thinking wistfully of his time here eight years ago when he blew the chance to win the oldest and most prestigious of all the major championships.

In reality, the Frenchman will have far more pressing matters to occupy his mind. Like the hospital tests he will be undergoing around the time that Paul Lawrie – who, in 1999, beat him in a four-hole play-off for the Claret Jug – will be teeing off in the company of Tiger Woods and Justin Rose.

Van de Velde has been ill these past four months and admitted yesterday that, among other things, he is undergoing tests that could detect bone cancer – a disease from which Paul Azinger, the United States Ryder Cup player, has made a full recovery.

Since attempting to defend his Madeira Island Open title in March, the 41-year-old Frenchman has been suffering from extreme fatigue, aching limbs, inflammation in his muscles and stomach pain. One diagnosis has suggested that he is suffering from glandular fever, but with such severe symptoms, other possibilities are being considered.

Van de Velde won countless friends around the world for the way he dealt with adversity at Carnoustie in 1999 after surrendering a three-shot lead with one hole to play. And he will win even more now for the way in which he is dealing with what is potentially a true crisis in his life. Perspective, it would seem, is his middle name.

“I am very sad that I’m not there this week,” Van de Velde said yesterday from his home in France. “But, you know what, you should have been with me from 8 this morning until midday, when I left the hospital. I can promise you, I will watch it on TV, but there were some people there who are not even going to be able to do that.

“I know inside me that I will hopefully be able to be at another championship and maybe another Open Championship. I don’t feel like I have a right to be complaining too much.”

Yesterday, Van de Velde underwent a full body scan that, he said, should identify “if you have any structural problem with your bone, basically if you have bone cancer”. He will have further tests on Thursday and added: “I want to find out what has happened to me, what can be done and needs to be addressed.

“I don’t want to waste any time. I want to get back in shape and I want to play golf. To be honest, I think my health is more important than playing in a golf tournament.”

When Van de Velde first fell ill, he was inclined to put it down to a touch of food poisoning. But it soon became apparent that it was much more serious. With his father having suffered from a liver complaint, that was an early line of inquiry, but to no avail.

“I came back home [from Portugal, a week after the Madeira tournament] and was extremely sick,” he said. “Everything that I was putting in my stomach was coming back out. I was sleeping 15, 16 hours a day. After that, I never recuperated.

“I’ve been sick for about a month, vomiting all the time, and it had been getting worse and worse to a point where the muscles were in agony. I gave up playing because I was in too much pain.”

There was talk, if little hope, that the former Ryder Cup player might have received a wild card to play at Carnoustie. He is flattered by the suggestion and says it would have been hard to turn it down. “I’m pretty sure that I would have honoured the invite because of all the memories that it brings back,” he said. “But saying that, would I have been able to compete? I would say that 99 per cent of the time the answer would be ‘No’.”

There was a time just a few years ago when a crippling knee injury looked to have ended Van de Velde’s career prematurely. He fought back and is preparing for another fight.

And of next year’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale? “I’ll see you there,” he said, his gentle humour evident in his voice.