Section:GDN 1N PaGe:35 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 19:21 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 31 July 2019 The Guardian •35Scott Murray
I
t 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 fl ag,
stopping 18 inches from the cup. He tapped in
for birdie, fi nishing the 2009 Open two clear of
the second-placed 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 diff erent 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, fi ve weeks shy of turning 70. He had won his fi rst
Open at Carnoustie in 1975. Just a shame there was no
valedictory birdie last weekend; he bogeyed his fi nal 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 Ronaldoup 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 fi eld 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 fl avour 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 champ ion’s spot would have been better
awarded to fi rst 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.T
hen 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-
affi rming 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
fi asco, 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!
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 fi nal 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
horrifi ed faces.
There are limits. The four-times
winner Old Tom Morris teed it up at
Muirfi eld in 1896, fi ve 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 fi ve-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 diffi cult 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.No other
sport
allows the
old-timers
to compete
at the top
with folk
who are
less than
half their
ageFinishing on 69
Watson, the most
durable of golfi ng
greats, signs off
for the last time
Football
Countdown to
the big kick-off :
League One
Page 37 Golf
Hall’s replica
Open trophy
stolen from car
Page 36 Tom Watson
played his last
competitive
round on
Sunday, 44
years after his
fi rst victory
in the Open at
Carnoustie
DAVID CANNON/
ALLSPORT/GETTY
IMAGESlica
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