Tom Watson Remains a Golfing Hero in Scotland

Post by Golf Writer Kieran Clark at Carnoustie

“There is Tom,” mutters one spectator just off the first tee in the sunshine at Carnoustie. Surnames are not required for the introduction of this particular adopted son of Scotland. The applause is sustained, almost reverential in nature, when he steps in front of a packed grandstand. He’s back to where it all began for him in the country that has brought him four Open Championship victories, with the fifth at Royal Birkdale in 1983 being the only time he secured the Claret Jug south of the border in England. Yes, this is Tom Watson’s place. And these are Tom Watson’s people.

“I’ve had some great memories. I bank on some of those memories when I come over here to give me – I think it gives me a foundation being here,” he said ahead of this week’s Senior Open. “Seeing some people and some friends that I’ve seen over the years here in Scotland wherever we play our tournaments, they always seem to show up. Reconnect and reacquaint.”

Playing with the colourful John Daly – wearing trousers that resemble the ignored side dish of a meal – and home favourite Colin Montgomerie, who remains a significant draw at the age of 53, the 66-year-old is re-establishing those meaningful bonds. The fans looking on feel the same way. They are excited to watch the unpredictable but thrilling two-time major champion, and more than happy to follow the often ill-tempered travails of Monty, but the atmosphere changes when Watson steps up to hit his opening tee shot. And it was a good one. Likely resembling many that he produced during his playoff victory over Australia’s Jack Newton on the Angus links in 1975.

That was his triumphant initiation to the challenges of seaside golf in Great Britain more than four decades ago, with the first taste coming at nearby Monifieth, where he returned on Wednesday to re-enact that moment, but it wasn’t an especially palatable experience at the time for the Kansas-native who holds a degree in psychology. “Last time I virtually lost the ball hitting it right down the fairway. It didn’t get me off to a great start as a far as my liking of links golf, to put it mildly.”

It would be fair to say that has changed over the subsequent years, with his appreciation for the purest form of the game growing with each year that he found success in golf’s oldest major. The key event that clicked that change in perception was a round in the pouring rain with his friend and former USGA president Sandy Tatum at Royal Dornoch in the early ‘80s. He finally understood it.

That blossoming relationship was reflected within the minds of those who watched him achieve those victories at Carnoustie, Turnberry, Muirfield, Royal Troon, and indeed at Birkdale. It placed him (at the age of 34) on the precipice of matching Harry Vardon’s unattainable record of six wins.

However, in a cruel twist reminiscent of a firm bounce from the fairway into a pot bunker, he never did match that achievement, despite near-losses to Seve Ballesteros at St. Andrews in 1984, and memorably the agonising playoff defeat at the age of 59 to Stewart Cink in 2009 on the Ailsa Course that had once brought him the greatest of highs. Links golf has given him a lot, and it has also taken things away. But watching him play it has brought a lot to joy to generations of Scottish golf fans.

They are appreciative of those memories, just as the man is himself. They are respectful of the golf he has played, but also the manner in which he has done it. “There’s no nonsense to him. He just gets on with it,” said one middle-aged spectator in attendance, perhaps also making a sly comment in reference to another member of the marquee grouping who has just loudly chastised a boy working on a manual scoreboard. “He loves Scotland and we love him,” said a man in his late 40s who has followed Watson around the Open rotation since he was a child.

There are many more like people like them. They cheer when he makes a birdie on the third, and quietly offer words of encouragement as he stands over a relatively short putt for par on the sixth. These have become the kryptonite to the American who was once among the world’s best on the greens. “Just tap this in, Tom, come on,” begs an older English gentleman watching nearby. Watson misses, to groans of despair. It followed a similarly failed effort on the previous hole.

As he approaches his 67^th birthday, with an emotional farewell to the Open Championship coming 12 months ago just across the water at the Home of Golf, these fans are acutely aware that opportunities to connect again with Watson are few in number. He will likely play in the Senior Open at St. Andrews in 2018, but that may be his final Caledonian curtain call. And they will miss him.

Last July, after crossing the Swilken Bridge in the dusk of the Auld Grey Toon, he reflected on that connection he was with the people who have watched him. “The fans were so appreciative, and their applause made me feel very humble," he said at the time. “I hope that over my career, as I said earlier on in my life here, at the end of my career, if I could entertain the fans with great golf shots, that's what I was out there to do. I think I hit a few of them in my career here, and I think that that -- maybe some of these people here had seen a few of them a long time ago.”

Many at Carnoustie had likely seen them too. And while those great shots may be less frequent than before, the fans will never stop thanking Watson for them.