It was a prize fight. Jack got the first punch in, but I landed winning blow
40 YEARS ON, TOM WATSON RECALLS HIS EPIC DUEL IN THE SUN WITH JACK NICKLAUS
IT WOULD take a brave man to question n Tom Watson’s judgment. This is one off sport’s true gentlemen and his Popeyee forearms still look like they could crushh golf balls. So, what to make of Watson’s assertion that his victory y over Jack Nicklaus at Turnberry 40 summers ago wass surpassed by Henrik Stenson’s triumph over Phill Mickelson at Royal Troon last year?
‘I’m often asked about it, just as Stenson and Mickel- son will be asked about their epic — it was better than ours, that’s for sure,’ says Watson.
‘They were much more under par than us and it was quite a shootout. You have to go by the numbers. Numbers are the reality in our business.’
Mickelson’s final-round 65 was not enough to match Stenson’s eight-under 63, which tied the major championship record for a low round, and his 20-under score of 264 set another record. At Turnberry, Watson shot a five-under-par 65 to Nicklaus’s 66, and he won by a shot on 12 under.
But though Stenson won The Open with staggering scoring, he was not the young buck who became the finest ever links golfer, and who took down the greatest player of all time with the final putt of the championship. He did not win the Duel in the Sun.
………………………………………………………………….………………. FOUR decades after that blazing hot July Saturday, Watson gazes out on a gloomier morning from Royal Birkdale’s white art-deco clubhouse.
In 1983, he hit a two-iron into the 18th green in front of him now — ‘probably the best long iron I’ve ever hit when I had to hit it’ — to set up hisis fifth and final Open en victory and the last of his eight majors.
But nobody usually lly asks him about thatat shot. What they wantnt to talk about is the day ay he took Jack down.
First, he’d ratherher dwell on his awe at meeting the great eat Bobby Locke, a foururtime Open champion, on, after missing the cut as d defendf d ing champion in 1976.
‘There he was, still playing in his plus-twos, tweed jacket. I went up to him, Old Muffin Face as they used to call him, and introduced myself.
‘The course was burnt down, really dry and hot. Somebody’s cigarette caused a fire so they sent a fire truck.’
Now Watson is the elder statesman everyone wants to meet. At 67, he shows little sign of slowing down. Although at 5ft 9in he is small in comparison with the big beasts of the modern game, he still competes on the senior tour.
Watson has arrived here on the Lancashire coast in his role as a testimoneet ti f for R Rolex,l officialffi i l timekeeper of The Open, who are celebrating 50 years in golf. He’s on a whirlwind trip from his Kansas home and has slept just five hours. But there’s still a gleam in those piercing blue eyes. ‘I’m in pretty good shape,’ he smiles.
His memory isn’t bad, either. Watson recalls the score he and Nicklaus made on every hole and the exact state of the leaderboard at each point during their famous duel.
It was set up by both of them shooting 65s in the third round to leave them three clear of Ben Crenshaw. Nicklaus, then 37, had won 14 of his 18 majors by that point; Watson, 10 years
younger, had captured the Claret Jug at Carnoustie in 1975 and then his first Masters earlier that year — by holding off Nicklaus down the stretch. ‘When I first started I never knew if I was going to make a birdie on the professional tour or make a cut,’ said Watson. ‘I didn’t have a clue. I just knew that I was going to work harder than anybody in practising my game to develop my skills to be the best player I possibly could be. ‘I had the chance to play with Arnie and Jack, Gary Player and Lee Trevino, and honed my skills, learned to play under pressure. That year kinda solidified that, yeah, I could get it done when I really had to and hit the quality shots under pressure.
‘Turnberry was like a prize fight,’ says Watson, and he puts his dukes up to relive the brawl. ‘He got the first punch in, I got the second one in, he got the third one in, I got the fourth one in.’
The pair also had to contend with the thousands flocking to watch the duel. After each shot a huge surge of people rushed ahead to get in position for the next mini-drama.
‘The crowd was out of control,’ Watson admits. ‘Jack said, “Tom, we have to do something about the crowd”. We couldn’t play because the crowd was continuing to go in front of us, to get ready to try to watch us.
There was a 15-minute delay to clear the fairway. Somehow, Watson found a moment of calm on the 16th tee to acknowledge his rival. ‘This is what it’s all about, isn’t it?’ he asked Nicklaus. ‘You bet it is,’ came the response.
‘We came down sparring on the last few holes and he made a mistake,’ continues Watson. ‘He slipped at 17 missing the short putt.’ That tiddler was for birdie and the miss handed the lead to Watson — who had hit the par-five green in two and two-putted. It was the first time Watson had edged his nose in front all day.
And so it all came down to the 72nd hole of the tournament. Nicklaus went for a big drive but sprayed it into a gorse bush, yet somehow still put his approach on the green, 35 feet away. Watson sent in the killer blow, a 178- yard seven-iron to two feet.
Or was it the killer blow? Watson laughs as he tells the story of how Alfie Fyles, his caddie from Southport, tempted fate.
‘When I hit that shot really close to the hole and Jack hit it on the green, Alfie said, “You’ve got him now, mister, you’ve got him now”. I said “No, no, Alf — he’s going to hole this putt.”
‘He kinda looks at me like he’s thinking, “What are you talking about?” Of course when he holed the putt I didn’t have to look at Alf but I knew what he was thinking. “Boss was right”.’
There is one memory Watson treasures from that day more than any other.
‘When Jack made his putt the crowd erupted into a roar that didn’t cease,’ he recalls. ‘I wanted to get on with it and make the putt. But it continued. I said, “To hell with this! I’m going to putt even if they’re still roaring for Jack!”
‘ So I put the ball down, picked up my marker and as I was standing up, Jack raised his hands, like this, to silence the crowd. Only in golf would this happen: in three seconds that roar went to dead silence. It was amazing. You couldn’t silence a crowd like that in any other sport, only in golf. And Jack did it.’
Yet that is not the abiding memory. ‘Coming off the green, that was the moment. Jack said, “Tom, I gave you my best shot, but it wasn’t good enough. Congratulations, I’m very happy for ya”.’
It was in that moment, when the defeated Nicklaus put one arm around the shoulder of his conqueror and shook his hand with the other that a great friendship was born.
‘Early on it was a very strong rivalry but there was always respect there. Jack has always had the right words to say in defeat. In victory, too, but in defeat he was always spot on. That graciousness is part of what I think is the greatest thing about golf.’
But what did he say to Nicklaus at that moment? ‘Thank you. What else could I say?’ BIRKDALE is a perfect stage for another classic, and Watson favours a form player to triumph this week — including a possible fairytale for Tommy Fleetwood in his home town.
The links master has just one tip for any would-be champion: ‘Main thing is, keep it in the fairway. Drive the ball well, and set up the tournament. If you don’t drive well you’re going to be struggling the whole time.’
So what is Watson up to now? Oddly, he is becoming a cowboy, cutting horses.
‘I’m trying to become a horseman, to compete in shows. I made the finals in two classes last week.’ Where did he finish in those finals? ‘Pretty close to last,’ he says, laughing.