The fans adored him and expressed it, crowding his every shot. Watson
became the oldest player ever to lead after 36 holes, and unbelievably
after 54 holes and, get this, after 72 holes. But he didn't win. The
only player to win more open titles was Harry Vardon, the great British
golfer in the early 20th century who won six Opens in his lifetime.
Vardon was the expected winner of the U.S. Open in 1913 when he came up
against 21-year-old ex-caddy Francis Ouimet and his 12-year-old caddy
in Brookline, Massachusetts, and lost to the young American. The first
American to win the U.S. Open. This was memorialized in the epic film, The Greatest Game Ever Played.
The trophy, the famous silver "Claret jug," was his to take at the last
hole of the 4-day 72-hole tournament. Out were Tiger, the Shark,
Sergio, Daly, Furik and all the rest. Watson, a psychology major at
Stanford, was quiet and collected, modest and spiritual in all his
interviews. He looked like a Buddha.
Golf, like no other sport, is played on an enormous field of earth,
undulated, rough and trimmed, sandy and hilly, where the wind, rain,
cold and heat change hourly to test, trick and surprise each shot, one
day to the next the same hole is totally different requiring a new test
of skill and interpretation of the elements. There is a statement in
the rules regarding a "rub of the green." This means a circumstance
that is unpredictable and unaccountable to any player but impacts the
play, sometimes enormously. It could be a gust of wind. A stray rock in
the bushes that causes your ball to bounce back onto the green from the
woods. An infinite array of possibilities that presents itself like a
poltergeist changing the luck and the outcome beyond any seeming
fairness.
Today, on the last day, on the last hole, after Tom Watson's last drive
down the middle of the fairway, he was sitting with a two-stroke lead
over the field, 160 yards from the green, the pin and thousands of
cheering fans. Tom was waiting for the players in front to finish their
play before he shot his last shot to the green. The American pro
Stewart Cink, the last player on the course other than Tom who was
close and the only player not to have fallen by the wayside, and who
had never won a major tournament in his life, stood before a 20-foot
birdie putt and sank it, leaving him one shot behind Watson. Watson
only needs to par the hole, shoot it on the green, make two putts and
win.
Now, the sporting gods and the record keepers, the witnesses and the
millions who were glued to Watson's last shot felt an earthly shot of
adrenaline in the air. It was an epic moment, the elysian fields, the
green on green on green of Scotland and whispering announcers who
seemed to be choking off tears about to witness a once in a lifetime,
no, a once ever phenomenon.
Watson swings, a perfect swing, a shot glued to the flagstick on the
green surrounded by thousands of fans, silence, the wind howling and
the ball flying through it perfectly placed. The cameras on towers, the
cameras in the hands of spectators all followed the ball flight as it
came down on the front of the green lined up with the pin as if it
would bounce and drop in, like we all thought the gods had ordained.
But we remember that Turnberry Golf Course had been taken over during
World War I and World War II as an airfield to train and send fighters
off to the war in Europe. The course was leveled, hangers built,
runways paved, bombs dropped, planes crashed, pilots killed in
accidents and finally restored to a championship course that in 1979
was the site of its first British Open. It was the time when Nicklaus
and Watson came out for the last 18 holes tied for the lead. Jack was
the all-time leader and Watson a young challenger. Watson won at the
last shot in the last hole to beat Jack and win the British Open. Now,
with the second time the Open is played at Turnberry, Watson again
stands to win with his last shot on the last day on the last hole tying
the all-time record with six wins.
The runways are still there, but all the rest had been bulldozed over
after the war to bring the course back into championship condition. Tom
Watson's last shot from a fairway lands on the front of the green and
takes a large unexpected bounce as if there were something deep
underground to challenge the roll and make the championship even more
special. His ball rolls past the hole and over the green resting on the
edge of some taller grass. The spectators rise on their feet, cheering
for the new champion as he walks modestly across the green to examine
the next shot. He now has two chances to win. He can putt the ball into
the hole and win by two strokes, or putt the ball close to it as he is
expected, having shown for 40 years to be the best at short shots
around the green of any player in history, make the putt and win by one
shot.
Replay after replay shows the ball jumping off Watson's putter head and
it scurries seven feet past the flagstick. Thousands are silent. The
"rub of the green" has spoken twice asking the champion to be the
strongest ever and sink the last shot of the entire tournament. All
other players had finished all their shots, counted their scores and
were watching the great Watson sink the last shot and change all the
record books.
Not to be, it seemed like the great Harry Vardon, from his grave
rattled the hallowed ground and said, "My record will always stand." In
a way it should, Vardon made the game what it is; he brought the game
to America and showed the world the magic of dancing with nature on the
grass. Watson missed the putt and ended up in a tie with Steward Cink
and lost the playoff. Cink had four birdies in the last nine holes,
birdying the 18th bringing him one shot behind Watson, with one hole to
play. Watson bogied the hole dropping him to a tie for the championship
and forcing a four-hole playoff.
Like the poem The One Hoss Shay, where all the parts fall apart
at once after the last mile it runs, Watson seemed to have geared his
time perfectly for 72 holes. Four more holes were too much. The cameras
focused on his face as he walked up the 18th hole an hour later as the
runner-up. His Buddha face had changed to that of a 59-year-old man. He
was human after all. Cink hugged Watson on the green and the world
didn't have a dry eye.
Sellers lives in Warren.
