Tom Watson: 'It all comes back to Monifieth'

Published on Saturday 25 July 2009 21:09

IT WAS EASY to miss if you weren't paying close attention. But just after Tom Watson struck that beautifully flighted but ultimately unavailing 8-iron to Turnberry's 18th green one week ago, the still five-time Open champion was forced to pause momentarily.

It wasn't that the unfortunate result of the shot had upset him; no, the problem was a wee bit of moisture in his eye, a spontaneous glistening caused by the obvious and sustained affection coming at him in waves from the grandstands. If the man from Kansas, only nine months removed from surgery to replace his left hip, was in any doubt about how we Scots have taken him to our hearts, minds and souls over the past three decades and a bit, that feeling had just been banished forever.

"My emotions were getting the better of me," he confirms. "My mind went back to playing with Jack Nicklaus and hearing his wise words when he made his farewell to the Open back in 2005. I was actually in a much worse state than he was walking up the last fairway at St Andrews; tears were running down my face. But he said: 'Come on Tom, you've got some golf left to play.'

"That simple phrase came back to me as I walked towards the green. So I said the same thing to myself: 'You've got some golf left to play.'"

The feeling Watson expresses so eloquently and vividly is, of course, a reciprocal thing, born of a shared respect for a mere game, its principles and how it should be played with, above all else, honesty and integrity. Ever since the then 25-year-old made his first trip to the world's oldest championship back in 1975, the connection and common factors between him and us have been evolving and growing.

"My relationship with Scotland got off to a wonderful start at Carnoustie that year," he recalls. "We stayed at a little house in Monifieth (in Angus]. The whole week the neighbours were very respectful of our privacy. Then on the last day they couldn't contain themselves any longer. That morning the little girl from next door knocked on our front door and said: 'Here, this is for good luck.' I could barely understand her. But she gave me a piece of heather, white heather, wrapped in aluminium foil. I put it in my bag and, sure enough, I won. That evening it seemed like the whole neighbourhood came by. My love affair with the Scottish people had begun."

What hadn't yet taken the shape it forms today was Watson's attitude to links golf. Brought up land-locked in Kansas, the ups and downs and ins and outs of the "ground game" played by the seaside were at once foreign and befuddling. Hard as it is to believe now, Watson – rather like Bobby Jones before him – was one of those nephews of Uncle Sam who at first just did not "get" our national sport. "I liked it through the air," he admits. "I didn't like the luck of the bounce." But, like every Scot-in-waiting, he had yet to take and pass the ultimate test of links golf. Could he suffer the vagaries, the sheer injustice of it all and move on without complaint? Not at first he couldn't. "The first hole I ever played in Scotland was at Monifieth," he recalls, flashing that familiar gap-toothed grin. "I hit my drive right down the middle of the fairway and we lost the ball. Lost the ball! Then, finally, I looked in this little pot bunker maybe 50 yards off line and there it was. Boy, was I mad."

Indeed, it wasn't until 1981 – by which time he had won three Opens in Scotland – that Watson, finally saw the light, courtesy of his close friend, Sandy Tatum, a former president of the United States Golf Association.

"Although I'm a Yank and always will be, I clearly love being in Scotland," says Watson. "And I clearly love links golf. And I love playing links golf with people who love it. It was Sandy who first got me feeling that way, though. Just before the Open at Sandwich in '81 I played Ballybunion in Ireland (where he was club captain in 2000] for the first time. Then we went to Prestwick, Troon and up to Royal Dornoch. Playing those courses was the beginning of me understanding what it was all about. I wasn't even playing particularly well at that time, but it all gave me a new appreciation. Seeing links golf through Sandy's eyes was a learning experience for me. To that extent, I will always be grateful to him."

Following his belated epiphany, Watson would win two more Opens and three Senior Opens, all but one on the shores of his adopted "homeland". What he was thinking in 1983 when he lifted the Old Claret Jug for a fifth time at Royal Birkdale is hard to imagine. But hey, we all make mistakes…

Nowadays, of course, Watson talks of links golf with zeal typical of the late convert. But there is more to his enthusiasm for the home of the game that has made him a rich man. Quite simply, he just likes it here.

"I get such a warm reception," he says, a hint of wonder still in his voice even now. "My wife and I went to a restaurant last week and were recognised. It's very nice. Golf is such a strong thread running through the lives of so many Scots, even those who don't play. Everyone at least knows someone who plays, so they understand the passion in the game. Of course, I think my winning five Opens helps, too!

"I also like what I see and hear from the children in Scotland. They are still very civilised. I love them because they are polite and they ask you for things in the right way. They still have good manners. I like to be called 'Mister Watson'. It shows respect. I give that same respect to my elders; I was brought up that way."

Looking forward, next year at St Andrews might be the last time Watson tees up in an Open through his past champion exemption. Depending on what the R&A decide to do in the wake of his amazing performance last week, 2010 may well be a fond farewell on the only Scottish course where he has failed to record victory. Whatever the final decision turns out to be, though, Watson is ready; sort of, anyway.

"I'll probably cry like Jack did," he admits. "It will be a sad time for me. I won't look forward to that last walk off that 18th tee. Of course, maybe I will finish in the top ten and it won't be my last one. St Andrews is a links, it isn't too long and I know I can play well there."

That much was obvious at Turnberry, and it is to be hoped that the R&A come up with an inventive way to keep Watson involved beyond next year. He is, sad to say, one of an increasingly small number of professionals who even attempt to play the game as it should be played. In a world of metal heads, graphite shafts, square grooves and 350-yard drives, he is a throwback to a golden age of shot-making which golf may never see again. Suffice to say, the great man is not a great fan of what modern technology has brought to the highest level of the game.

"What is uninteresting is playing a links with no wind," he admits. "All we have to do then is play to the yardage.

"And when the ball goes as straight as it does now, you don't have to work it from left to right or right to left; all you have to do is aim right at your target. That takes a skill factor out of the game. In defence of the young players, they have never had to learn a variety of shots. They have three wedges, for example. They have never had to add loft to their 56-degree wedge to make it play as if it has 60 degrees. I'm sure they understand how to hit the ball a little higher, but it's a lot easier to hit a high lofted shot with a 60-degree wedge than it is to hit one with only 56 degrees."

That, however, is just about as close as Watson gets to grumpiness when in these parts. The rest of his time here is spent wallowing in something not far removed from utter contentment. This is a man who, in so many ways, fits right into our environment. Ask him what he enjoys most about Scotland and a lengthy list spills haphazardly from his lips.

"I like the nature of the people," he says. "I like the way golf is played. I haven't driven for a few years, but I feel comfortable on the left side. And yes, I've queued for fish and chips. I love haggis, too. But grouse is a different story! I play fast; the Scots play fast. 'Let's get on with it.' There's no pretence. That's what I love most about the game over here. 'Let's go play.'"

Happily too, even the ultimately crushing disappointment of last week has failed to dampen the boyish enthusiasm for competition he has had all his life.

"When I was a kid, 14 years old, I won the Kansas City men's matchplay championship," he recalls. "That was really a watershed event for me. There I was, a kid, beating all the men. It gave me a feeling I liked. I liked getting the congratulations for beating the men. I liked that a lot. I really did. I was a competitor. I liked to win. So that was special for me. That feeling has never left me. I still like the feeling of being congratulated."

On that basis the past week has been endless fun, never mind the almost sleepless night he endured in the immediate aftermath of what was an agonising failure to add a sixth Claret Jug to his collection. Such has been the enormous number of e-mails he has received since last Sunday, his in-box has given up the fight and now sits empty, having overloaded.

Speaking of last week, Watson dismisses the notion that a US Open-style 18-hole play-off on Monday after a good night's sleep would have rejuvenated his weary legs and helped his chances against a much younger man – Stewart Cink is 36.

"A play-off is a play-off," he shrugs "It doesn't matter to me. I was ready to go out and play immediately. (R&A chief executive] Peter Dawson told me to take my time, but I told him I was ready to go right then.

"And I hit a good drive at the opening hole, right down the middle. My legs felt fine. I was trying to hold my 2-hybrid into the crosswind at number six and boy, I made a bad swing there. I got ahead of the ball and blocked it. I didn't make the ball go where it was supposed to go.

"That was one of the very few bad swings all week where the ball didn't go where I was trying to make it go.

"After the tee-ball at 17 I was doomed. I have to put it in play, I have to, after making the great par at six. I have to put it in play because Stewart put it in play. He put his 3-wood right there and I put my ball in the crud and that was it."

That it was. As soon as Watson's ball landed in the rough on that penultimate hole, his epic challenge was all but over.

One gets the feeling we haven't heard the last of our adopted son, though. Much golf still lies ahead of him and let's hope a good deal of it is played in Scotland. Haste ye back young Watson.

Seaside specialist

TOM Watson has had a charmed golfing life in Scotland, winning four of his five Open championships in this country and all three of his seniors Opens. He has won on five of the links here, an astonishing achievement.

It all began in 1975 when he beat Jack Newton (above) in a play-off to take the Claret Jug at Muirfield.

Watson and Newton had finished level on 9-under, with Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller a shot back on 8-under. In 1977, the famous Duel In The Sun was played out at Turnberry, Watson shooting 65-65 over the weekend to again beat Nicklaus by one shot. Hubert Green was 11 shots behind in third place. "I won the Open," said Green, later. "Those two guys were playing a different game."

Watson's third Claret Jug came at Muirfield where he finished on 13-under, beating his fellow American Lee Trevino (right) by four shots. Two years later he shot 70 in the final round for 4-under and pipped Nick Price and Peter Oosterhuis by a stroke.

In 2003 he shot 64 on Sunday and then went on to beat Carl Mason in a play-off to win his first Seniors Open at Turnberry. It was a magical performance on a links where he could do no wrong. Two years later he beat Des Smyth in a play-off at Royal Aberdeen and two years after that he finished one shot ahead of Mark O'Meara and Stewart Ginn at Muirfield. Seven majors in one country and until last Sunday, three successful play-offs out of three. No wonder he loves the place.