TOM WATSON'S OPEN RUN:I SAT AROUND a dinner table 30 years ago, in the days when the pros all went to dinner together, and posed a question to my AmericanWalker Cup friends LannyWatkins, Tom Kite and the affable champion and historian, gentle Ben Crenshaw: "Who's eyes would you least like to look into going down the final stretch of a Major championship?"
I was certain I would hear the name Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player. The verdict was unanimous, TomWatson, they said, had the coldest, steeliest eyes they had ever looked into in this situation.
Having played this game for two score years and more,competitively but poorly for 15 years, and commentated for over 2,000 hours, I have become a veteran observer of what this game has given and taken from so many. I have seen the “stake through the heart” of many great young players like Bobby Clampett and Bobby Cole, who had all but had their hands on the Claret Jug. Their failure was critical and terminal to their potentially great careers
. We have witnessed great displays of courage and control and the feelings of ecstasy that go with holing that final putt on the 72nd hole of The Open . . . Seve at St Andrews.We have also seen the agony and consequences of those who should have won but had The Open stolen from them . . . Jacklin at Birkdale.
Sunday was all of what this great game is about. I have believed for many years as I watched the true champions of my era wind down their illustrious careers that “lady golf” gives back to those humble “gentleman champions” who have given so much during their lives. She has also dealt cruel blows to those who simply took and never knew the joy of giving. The pros and those themselves know who.
She bestowed a magnificent “kiss goodbye” to Nicklaus, winning the Masters at 46 with his son Jackie on the bag. Johnny Miller got a peck on the cheek in winning the AT&T on the memorable Pebble Beach at well past his sell-by date.
For years I have waited for her to bestow her gift upon Tom Watson. I gave up backing him in Majors only five years ago and wondered why she had forsaken this true lover of links golf and adopted son of Scotland, a great gentleman who understood the deepest roots of the integrity of this game and carried the name of their greatest golfer, “Old Tom”.
The cries from the fairways at Turnberry were almost haunting . . . “Come on Tommy, ye can do it”. It was as if Old Tom himself was there in the clouds looking down at “son” Tom trying to equal his epic record.
You know he would have wished him well on that 18th tee, and with that perfectly struck eight-iron through that famous tunnel where dreams come true and ring in the ears of champions forever. Alas, as I screamed, with my son looking at me in bewilderment, it did not bite on its second bounce, almost hit the pin for a fairytale finish, but then painfully trickled over the green up against the inevitable fringe.
It was at that moment I knew it was Father Time up there and not Old Tom or The Old Lady. Father Time is both judge and executioner. The steel-cold eyes never changed, the brisk walk was still there, but the spirit was, alas, broken inside.
This truly great champion will be remembered in folklore for his walks through the tunnel at Turnberry, not just against Jack but against Father Time, when he proved it is possible to win a major at 60. She has given you a beautiful kiss goodbye, young Tom.
