Tom Watson’s love affair with Turnberry has brought triumph and heartache, but at 62 he’s ready to add another episode at this summer’s British Senior Open.
Watson’s Turnberry Opens have been the stuff of legend, starting with the Duel In The Sun in 1977, through his final-round slump in 1994 to the epic of two years ago, when he almost won the title a few months off his 60th birthday.
The five-times Open champion also won the first of his three Senior Open titles on the Ailsa Course, and will return in July, but his greatest memory is still walking off the 18th in 1977 with Jack Nicklaus.
He said: ”It was the start of a few contests with Jack and created a level of respect from him, where he thought ‘maybe this kid can play a little bit’.
”The most poignant memory I have of Turnberry is walking off the green after I had sunk the putt when Jack grabbed me around the neck real hard, I mean it wasn’t just a pat or an arm on the shoulder.
”He grabbed me, screwed his arm around my neck and said, ‘Tom, I gave you my best shot but it wasn’t good enough. Congratulations’.
”Coming from the greatest player ever, that meant more to me than probably winning the championship itself, and after that moment I felt I could play with anybody.”
Most vivid in the memory is 2009, however, when he led down that same 18th, but despite the millions willing him to win, he lost a play-off to Stewart Cink.
Watson said: ”That week only increased my love for this place, but actually going into the week, I was playing very well but my putting was poor.
”Then on Tuesday I changed my putting and suddenly started making everything.”‘I can win this”’At the beginning of the championship I told my wife Hilary ‘I can win this tournament’ and it wasn’t just a bragging statement there were a couple of things in the mix that made me believe it.”
One of those things was his experience of the course, and the knowledge that for the majority of players it was their first time in competition at Turnberry.
He added: ”The other thing was the weather forecast. I knew that the winds were going to change, to blow strongly from the north-west and the golf course had not played like that once during the practice rounds.
”So I had an advantage at holes like number eight which almost always catches out players playing the first time in that wind by not hitting enough club.
”That’s just one example where my experience was an advantage.”
Although his classy demeanour at the end belied it, he admitted he was ”distraught” at missing out so narrowly.
”It tears your guts out when something like that happens,” he said.
”I remember on 18 when the ball was in the air, I said ‘just like ’77’. It was going right at the flag but with the uncertainty of links golf, maybe a gust of wind took it a bit further than it was supposed to.”’New generation’The one good thing was the response from the public about how Watson’s effort had inspired them.
”I had thousands of people writing to me about how they were older and had given up playing golf or stopped doing something they felt too old to do, but how they were going back to work at it and try to do it again,” he said.
Watson knows enough about that game to know a special set of circumstances allowed him to be so competitive three years ago, and that young players own the game now.
He said: ”Time marches on and the younger guys are doing great, like Rickie Fowler just now and I was very impressed by the way he played at St George’s last year.
”There are some players now that Tiger Woods is not dominating that have blossomed and flourished because they’ve had the chance to win.
”As Rory McIlroy said, he’s more comfortable each time he’s leading or near to the lead in a tournament, and I can relate 100% to that from when I was a kid trying to win my first event.
”I choked a bunch of them away but at least I kept putting myself in a position to learn what the pressure is like and how I could deal with it, and that’s what the new generation is doing.”