I should not have presumed Watson

Seeing as a missed putt to lose a bet in a friendly fourball leaves me in a state of despair I wonder how you cope with what happened to Tom Watson at Turnberry on Sunday?

Shattered is not a strong enough word. One moment Watson was on the brink of pulling off arguably the greatest ever sporting achievement and the next thing he was, well what he is, a 60-year-old struggling to complete a task well beyond his mental, physical and nervous abilities.

Just like that missed putt that you play over and over in your mind I found myself feeling culpable for Watson’s eventual failure.

I have always believed in that intangible spiritual side of sport and I felt bad about an SMS I sent out to a number of friends as Watson stood over his second shot on the 72nd fairway. “We are about to witness the greatest sports achievement, EVER.”

As I started sending it I felt I was tempting fate. You should have waited until it was over I told myself.

But then Watson struck a beautiful second shot, briefly evoking thoughts of two putts from ten foot to win The Open, only to see the ball fail to bite and roll down the bank at the back of the green.

I shouted for it to stop and I think I knew then that the miracle would not happen. Most who had been through the green – including Ernie Els and Chris Wood – had failed to get up-and-down and I instinctively knew that Tom Watson wouldn’t as well.

The man who holed one of the most delicate and difficult of pitches at the 17th at Pebble Beach to beat Jack Nicklaus in the 1982 US Open deferred to his age by opting to putt up the little slope and that little devil that tells you not to be short caused him to run the ball too far by.

He is a man who has had his troubles with the putter and he failed to pull off the stroke of the ages to allow Stewart Cink, his junior by 23 years, to step up and win his first Major.

It was, in the end, a triumph for a great champion, a triumph for the gentlemanly spirit of the game and a triumph for “real” golf.

On most courses these days Watson would be unable to compete because he simply does not hit the ball high enough or far enough. On the Turnberry links, unfettered and without any man-made designed features, he could bring all his skills to bear, play the contours of the land, coax and caress the course rather than overpower it, and come so heart-breakingly close.

Watson and Cink finished the regulation 72 holes on two under par 278 and as always the big yellow-and-black leader board was littered with “if onlies,” – none worse than Lee Westwood who frittered away shots, three-putted the last, and then found himself just one shot out of the tie.

And thank heavens the scrawny Chris Wood failed to turn three shots into two from the back of the 18th – imagine an Open champion looking that scruffy and unkempt?

Retief Goosen needed to be just two shots better – and how easily he could have been – and Ernie Els missed the play-off by three in posting yet another top-10 finish at the Open. Yet again it was the putter that let Els down as he bogeyed the 16th, missed a makeable eagle putt on the 17th and missed again on the 18th.

For Cink, who would have been hailed for clinically closing out the championship (he birdied 18 twice in the matter of minutes) had he not been up against Watson, the victory is the crowning glory of a career that might have been remarkable for the amount of money he won without winning that often.

Going into the Open he was edging on the $30-million mark in career earnings (in the top 10 on the PGA Tour) but with only 6 victories on the regular tour, three on the Nationwide tour and none in Europe. His best finishes in majors were T3 in the 1999 US PGA and 3rd in the 2001 USOpen at Southern Hills; when a three-putt on the last green (the last putt from well inside a metre) led to a double bogey which cost him a spot in the play-off against eventual winner Retief Goosen and Mark Brooks.

Now that he has won a Major all that will change, but hopefully not so much that he stays away from the Nedbank Challenge!