Tom Watson denied dream end to glittering career as he signs off for last time
It seems like only yesterday. Yet it’s been 10 years since Tom Watson creamed that approach into the 18th at Turnberry, his ball taking a soft bounce and rolling gently towards the flag, stopping 18 inches from the cup. He tapped in for birdie, finishing the 2009 Open two clear of the secondplaced nearly man Stewart Cink. As the gallery cavorted in ecstasy bordering on disbelief, Watson raised the Claret Jug. At a stately 59 years of age, he had become the oldest major champion, beating the record held by Julius Boros, the winner of the 1968 PGA as a 48-year-old whippersnapper. It was the most joyous day in golf’s history; the wonderful denouement of the greatest tale ever told. Nothing at all had gone wrong at any point.
We all have different ways of dealing with grief, and this is mine. I’m allowed my fantasy. You can’t stop me. But even the greatest careers have to end. Last Sunday in the Senior Open, Watson played his last round of competitive golf, five weeks shy of turning 70. He had won his first Open at Carnoustie in 1975. Just a shame there was no valedictory birdie last weekend; he bogeyed his final three holes.
Not quite the fairytale ending enjoyed by his friend and former foe Jack Nicklaus, who made birdie on 18 at St Andrews when stepping off the tour treadmill in 2005. But then Watson will always have the upper hand in the Duel in the Sun, so everybody goes home happy.
Watson’s longevity is worth celebrating, especially as no other sport allows the old-timers to compete at the top with folk less than half their age. Compare and contrast his antics of 2009 to other 1949 babies. Manchester United were not pairing Cristiano Ronaldo up front with Brian Kidd. Wladimir Klitschko was not trading blows with George Foreman. Jimmy Anderson never opened the bowling with Bob Willis. But Watson contested the same Open as Rory McIlroy, 39 years his junior. By the end of it he was 45 places better off.
Watson was in the field thanks to the exemption he had earned for becoming the Champion Golfer all those years ago. Win the Open and you are guaranteed a spot until the age of 60. Win the Masters or the PGA and you are in for life. This tradition is one of the reasons championship golf has a unique flavour but it’s under threat. When 47-year-old David Duval ran up 14 on the 7th at Portrush a fortnight ago, some suggested the hapless 2001 champion’s spot would have been better awarded to first alternative Martin Kaymer. Given Duval also made triple and quadruple bogey on his way to 91, having previously played just four events all year, while Kaymer is 34 and a relatively recent PGA and US Open winner, it’s tough to deny.
Then again, Kaymer had all season to qualify, while Duval put in the hard yards years ago. This, for better or worse, was his reward. And ours. Purists may demur but there is something life-affirming in a former world No 1 hitting three balls off the tee, losing two then playing the wrong one, en route to a nonuple bogey. You would not want to witness it every week but it’s reassuring to know golfageddon is not the preserve of the weekend hacker. Without his exemption, this yarn remains unspun.
Duval smashed the modern Open record of 11 for a single-hole meltdown. He was one shy of the all-time fiasco, the 15 made by the German amateur Herman Tissies in 1950 qualifying at Troon. Tissies went from bunker to bunker and back again on the par-three Postage Stamp, though he required only a single putt. A one-putt duodecuple bogey! You do not get many of those to the pound.
But we digress. These things tend to be forgotten when single holes are played in nine over par but there had earlier been a frisson of excitement when Duval opened his ill-fated round with consecutive birdies. How lovely to see a long-forgotten favourite pop up unexpectedly on the leaderboard, even if they just hang about for a couple of hours on Thursday morning. Sandy Lyle was always good for this. Fred Couples too, though he took throwback thrills to the next level, playing in the final group of the 2006 Masters as a 46-year-old, then sharing the 36-hole lead in 2012 at 52 before tiring. Without exemptions, Greg Norman would never have led the 2008 Open after 54 holes as a 53-year-old, nor would a new generation have witnessed one of his trademark fourth-round implosions unfolding in real time before their horrified faces.
There are limits. The four-times winner Old Tom Morris teed it up at Muirfield in 1896, five days shy of his 75th birthday. He carded rounds of 101, 103 and 105 before withdrawing, never to compete in the Open again. But even septuagenarians can make a mark. In 1973 at Troon, the 71-year-old Gene Sarazen punched a five-iron into the Postage Stamp for a hole in one. The next day, the 1932 Open champion found a bunker, then splashed out for birdie. He had played a notoriously difficult hole twice, taking just three strokes, never once requiring the putter.
Sarazen shot 79 and 81 that week, not bad for a senior dude. Coincidentally, his 36-hole total was exactly the same as the one he made there in 1923, when he struggled as a young man in high winds. One tinder-dry Troon member could not help himself, chiding the seven-times major champion: “Fifty years, Mr Sarazen, and you haven’t improved a single shot.” No, golf would not be the same without the old boys. Though on balance, Tom Watson has probably timed his exit perfectly.