Not to be.
Tom Watson was denied, and the tragedy of it was he himself was the culprit. How could he have fluffed a nine footer for par on the 72nd hole, for God’s sake, and that too at Turnberry Ailsa course.
Watson must have hit tens of thousands of golf shots, of all kinds, in his storied career as a professional golfer. I must have seen at least a thousand of them. But, I remember only three. Check that. I recall three passionately.
One, the “miraculous” shot off the seventeenth green at Pebble Beach in the 1982 US Open. Oh, my! Off the green, from the thick rough on a downhill lie, and sinking the chip shot. The greatest shot ever! Particularly because Jack Nicklaus was sitting pretty after his round and sharing the lead; Watson had a big hole in his résumé – had not won the US Open till then. Watson, while a student at Stanford, psychology major, used to drive down to Pebble Beach, his home ground, so to say. That was pressure.
And, the context is indeed much enlarged, the professional rivalry between Watson and Nicklaus. It was Palmer v. Nicklaus being played out as Nicklaus v. Watson. What Watson and Nicklaus did at Turnberry in 1977 was indeed epochal. This duo lapped the rest of the field by ten shots – paraphrasing what Hubert Green who placed third, “Those guys were playing some other tournament; I am the winner of the British Open!” But, it was Watson who kissed the Claret Jug that year, beat Nicklaus by one shot. I just felt like reading the Sports Illustrated article by Dan Jenkins (which I had read only a hundred times) and enjoyed every bit of it. Again.
I must admit that what I have written about 1977 Turnberry is from my extensive reading about Watson and his style of golf. Never sedate. Most unexpected bolts of brilliance occasionally interspersed with journeyman shots. I have spent many hours in the M I King Library of the University of Kentucky going through back issues of Golf Digest and other magazines. Yes, I was crazy about him, and I am still. And, I am not alone. The Scots swear by him, for his having lifted the Jug five times.
Sorry for the digression. Now I come to the second shot that I can never forget. This was the approach shot on the Road Hole (17th), incarnation of the devil, on the Old Course at St. Andrews (those who have seen the movie Chariots of Fire will notice the club house in the opening scenes) on the final day of the 1984 of The [British] Open. [The Brits are such snobs; Wimbledon is The Championships, the British Open is The Open!]
The road the hole derives its name from is a cart path and Watson had to go and find it with his second shot. And, on the other side of the pin he had the dreaded deep pot bunker. I will never forget my response to where the ball settled: “Oh, my!” Watson left this hole two shots behind the leader, Severiano Ballesteros, in the pair ahead, with whom he had shared the lead when teeing off at the 17th. Ballesteros won by two shots.
A few words about Ballesteros, Seve to his fans, the Spanish bullfighter. In a famous incidence he birdied a hole from a parking lot! The story goes that when he was very young, his family could not afford to buy him a full set of clubs. And, what this guy did was to improvise shots of the single wedge he had. A sand wedge? There it is. A pitching wedge, there it is, again. Man, he could conjure up shots. He was a magician on the course, but extremely temperamental. You did not know what he would do next. He is my second favorite golfer.
Now, to the third shot. The first two that I have described so far are from my personal memories, a moment of exhilaration in the first and an equally severe moment of despondence, in the second. But, the third shot of Watson I will never forget is one I did not see. The nine foot par putt at the 72nd hole of The Open, 2009 at Turnberry. I was excited to read that Watson was leading at the end of 54 holes. But, I could not get myself to walk down with him (on TV, of course). I was too tense. And, in the end, the news was bad. I do not know whether Watson pushed or pulled the putt, or left it short. I do not want to know. But, this shot, I will remember forever. There was a chance for a 59 year old golfing legend to win, to write history. And, it did not come to pass.
There will be many who can recount the Larry Mize 140 feet long chip shot that froze Greg Norman at the Augusta Masters, 1987. But, it will never match the chip shot from off the green at the 17th at Pebble Beach. Many may point out to tough, under-pressure shots from the blades of Tiger Woods. But, they will not measure up. Nothing will.
It is ironic that two of the three shots I remember, both negative, happened in Scotland, the land where Tom Watson is a demi-god. And, the one positive shot, at Pebble Beach, was struck in the US, where besides being a Hall of Famer, Watson’s name is not much recalled or remembered. Things will change now, I am sure. His endearing gap toothed smile, forced perhaps under the circumstances, will again find prominence in the public mind.
This is to be.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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