Watson reeling in the years

DOES anyone remember a calmer, more peaceful and respectful time in golf before fire hydrants became as hazardous on tour as the Island hole at TPC Sawgrass?

The unravelling of Tiger Woods’s personal life in front of a watching world these last few weeks may have clouded our perspective but let us not forget one of the more positive, uplifting and welcoming contributions to a golfing year full of surprises.

A look at the list of major winners in 2009, from Angel Cabrera to Y E Yang, is proof that form and ranking are sometimes no guide at all when it comes to the most important tournaments of the year. Yet the story of what might have been at this year’s Open Championship at Turnberry could well prove the most telling example of all.

As the world’s best golfers gathered on the west coast of Scotland in mid-July, there were already plenty of juicy storylines developing... Would Pádraig Harrington recover the form he had deserted all year in search of an improved swing to win a third successive Open; and, with Phil Mickelson tending to his ailing wife, who would challenge world number one Woods on his return to a British links course for the first time in two years after missing Birkdale in 2008 through injury.

The only mentions Tom Watson got in the build-up were in nostalgic look backs to his 1977 ‘Duel In The Sun’ on the same course with Jack Nicklaus.

Thirty-two years on, however, the five-time Open champion’s mind was very much on matters present. And did we mention he was 59 years of age? Never mind the history, nor the hip replacement surgery he had undergone the previous October; as Woods was making an uncharacteristic exit on the wrong side of the halfway cut, Watson was atop the leaderboard with fellow American Steve Marino following rounds of 65 and 70.

By Saturday night, a third-round 71 was good enough for the outright 54-hole lead. As he stood on the 72nd tee 24 hours later, the Claret Jug was Watson’s to win again. Just as in 1977, he was a shot clear and his perfect tee shot took him to the brink of becoming the oldest golfer in history to win a major.

The approach to the 18th green looked pretty good too, but it rolled past the hole and out the back of the putting area. From there, a bogey was the best he could do and that was only good enough for a play-off with Stewart Cink and the dream was disappearing.

Much to the disappointment of seemingly everyone bar the Cink family, the old man was never in the hunt during the four-hole play-off yet Watson seemed to take the defeat better than anyone else.

“This ain’t a funeral, you know,” he said as he began his post-play-off press conference in a sombre media room.

“It would have been a hell of a story, wouldn’t it? It would have been a hell of a story. It wasn’t to be.”

The adulation he received from the Turnberry galleries and the media blitz that followed him on to the following week’s Senior British Open and then back home at the US Senior Open gave him a reminder of life at the top of the modern game and, presciently, the scrutiny the number one in the world is subjected to.

“The crowds were just wonderful to me. It reminds me of what it used to be like when you played the big Tour, played the kids’ Tour and were in contention all the time and the responsibilities that you had, that you have, to take care of business.

“My hat goes off to Tiger for what he has to go through with all the things pulling at him, as much as he wins and as much as he’s in the limelight.”

The attention in 2009 is also markedly different from the 1977 vintage.

“I really felt it when I got back to the States,” Watson said. “My e-mail broke down. I had so many e-mails coming in, Outlook Express broke right down. There were thousands. Just couldn’t handle it. It just said, ‘Nope, I’m not doing this anymore’. You know how computers are.”

Aside from keeping a promise to respond to every e-mail and letter, Watson has kept himself remarkably busy since, visiting American troops in Iraq, producing an instructional set of DVDs and riding horses, an activity he has been able to start since receiving his new hip, though not without incident.

“We have had horses in our family for six, seven years. I’ve never ridden one because my hip wouldn’t let me. Now I’ve got a bionic hip and I can spread my legs and get on a horse. I did fall off last week, but didn’t hurt me. He went one way and I went the other and it was, ‘See ya’.”

If the now 60-year-old Watson can stay out of trouble in the saddle, there is still one title the three-time Senior British champion and one-time Senior PGA winner seeks when he returns to action on the Champions Tour in 2010.

“The US Senior Open is the one I want to win the most,” he says. “I’ve been pretty close a couple times. Couple times I’ve been right there, and sure would like to have that one.”

Not that he is ready to forego his exemption to the Open, competing against “the kids” as he calls Woods, Mickelson, Harrington and co. The coming year will see the 139th Championship return to St Andrews, a course that Watson feels he can still make an impact on given the right conditions. “Well, it depends on the wind. If the wind comes from the west there, I have a hard time with that golf course. Hole No. 4 gets me. I can’t hit it far enough to get it over the junk. You have the rough there, and it depends on how deep the rough is. I’m driving into the rough all the time. It’s like the 10th hole at Bethpage Black there at the first US Open; when they moved the tee back, nobody could get to the fairway.

“But I feel like I can play St Andrews. I still have some of the shots to be able to play that golf course.”

And his experience at Turnberry has made him all the stronger for the challenge.

“Mentally and emotionally I’m fine,” Watson said. “I mean, I’ve always been able to take a defeat or disappointment and make lemonade out of it. Bobby Jones said it right: ‘you never learn in victory, only defeat’.

“I learned it wasn’t over until it was over. I hit two perfect shots at 18 and I still had to finish. I didn’t do a very good job of finishing.”

Given his overall performance at Turnberry, who would bet against him going one better at the Home of Golf? Still, Watson does make some concessions to his age.

Asked recently what he thought was the nicest thing someone had said or written to him, Watson admitted: “A woman from Kansas City sent me the most beautiful thought... I’ve written it down, but my Swiss cheese memory can’t remember it.

“I am 60 years’ old, you know.”