Thank You, Tom Watson

Filed in archive Golf News on July 19, 2009

I will admit that I cried when Tom Watson came up heartbreakingly short on Sunday at Turnberry.

The putt he missed on 18 to seal what would have been a record-setting victory was the kind that has been his nemesis for more than 10 years.

But that's not when I shed a few tears; it was when he began to fall apart in the playoff with Stewart Cink.

I realized - as did he and millions of others watching - that he was finally showing his age.

Yet, up to that point it was pure joy to watch a man nearly 60 years old use his decades of knowledge and experience to chart a course over 4 days around a devilishly hard layout.

He captured first the attention and then the imagination of the world.

And, come Sunday morning, the question was on everyone's minds: could he do it? Could he pull off the win and become the oldest golfer by far to win a major championship?

Make no mistake; it was no Cinderella run that Tom Watson put in. No way was it simply that.

It was the kind of performance and wily ability that epitomizes the spirit of the game of golf.

I say "spirit" because today the game of golf is about power, distance and backspin.

None of those "qualities" was of any use at Turnberry. What was useful was course management and Tom Watson had that by the bucketful.

He knew when to attack and when to bend the will of Turnberry to his own advantage.

Watson said after his third wonderful round on Saturday that he felt "serene" on the course; it wasn't just how well he played Turnberry, he said, it was more than that.

"There was something else out there today", he said. He was implying that there was an ephemeral force, something spiritual, that is present at Turnberry. The spirit of golf.

And Watson had tapped into it on Saturday. Sports psychologists say it comes when you're "in the zone", when you are at one with your Higher Self.

No conscious thought or effort is needed; everything simply flows.

But one cannot stay in the zone for long. Or call it up at will (witness Tiger Woods' very average performance over two days).

And Watson re-discovered that on the first hole on Sunday.

Tom Watson, nearly 60 years of age, felt every month of those years after 72 holes. He felt it when he walked onto the 5th tee with Stewart Cink to begin their 4-hole playoff.

By then, I think Watson knew he was done; the tank was empty and he really didn't hit a single good shot for the next four holes.

Yet, what a wonderful run! How clearly he showed us what the human spirit and mind are capable of, regardless of age.

And, in the end, he also showed us that when the mind begins to weaken, the body must take over. At almost 60, Tom's body couldn't take over. Nobody's could have.

So, congratulations to Stewart Cink who controlled his game beautifully. A thousand thanks to Tom Watson and shame on those idiots in the stands who chanted "USA, USA" during the presentation ceremony.

How could they be so ignorant of what had happened? Did they think it was Brookline and Cink had just won the Ryder Cup for America?

Silly fools. The game of golf is never about nations, citizenship or patriotism.

It's about everything that Watson and Cink and Westwood and Wood and Montassero and Goggin and every other player who fought Turnberry fair and square did: they played golf.

It was golf the way the Scots envisioned it: a fight, tooth and nail, to the finish.

A lot like Scottish history.