Tom Watson has made a point of not labelling Rory McIlroy the next Tiger Woods, the next Jack Nicklaus or the next anybody else for that matter.
But he was happy to offer up a comparison to one golfing great of the past himself.
In the weeks since the young Northern Irishman blitzed the field to run away with the US Open, all manner of lavish tributes have been heaped upon him.
Now, the legendary five-time Open champion comparing McIlroy’s golf game to his own is another one to come his way.
Watson said, “The speed at which he plays reminds me of me. He’s a young kid who just keeps everything simple. It’s just yardage, club, hole, hit it.
“You don’t see Rory spending a long time lining up his club 240 yards away from the hole like some.”
He added, “I know the quotes that people want me to say. People are always asking me if he’s going to be the next best player. But I never speculate. There’s no point.
Watson said, “We’ll check on his career in 10 years time but at the moment he’s won one major championship.”
What sets the 22-year-old apart from his peers, and indeed many of those with 10 or more years’ experience, according to Watson, is that he can bounce back from adversity namely his final-round meltdown at the US Masters in April.
Watson said, “He learned a lot more from losing that one the way he did than winning the US Open. You don’t know what pressure is until you’re actually in it.Choked”I had a really hard time dealing with it myself. I wasn’t a winner when I first came on tour and I choked my way through a lot of tournaments. It took me from 1971 to the Turnberry Open in 1977 to really feel that I belonged with the big boys like Jack.
“Some people, like Rory, learn faster than others and he’s now crossed the big hurdle of winning his first major.”
McIlroy is understandably the favourite to lift the Claret Jug on Sunday evening but it’s another Brit who Watson has singled out.
He said, “I’m looking at Luke Donald. Luke is playing great just now. He’s won three times this year and there’s nobody else can say that this week.”
Watson nearly wrote the greatest golfing possibly sporting story of them all when he came within one missed six-footer of winning the Open at Turnberry in 2009 as a 59-year-old.
He was not talking up his chances of giving the young guns another run for their money on the Kent coast this week, but he wasn’t ruling it out either.Perfect stormHe said, “My performance at Turnberry was a perfect storm in a lot of ways. I got things going with my putter on the practice days and there was also the fact that I’d played six championships on the course and had seen all the different winds, whereas for a lot of the kids it was their first experience.”
He added, “That was as serene a round of golf as I’ve ever played. How well can I play here? I had a good tournament the last time in 1993 when I finished 18th.
“Royal St George’s is growing on me. It’s a good second-shot course and rewards well-struck iron shots.
“It probably has the most complicated greens on the Open rota and getting your ball on the right part of them is very tough
“Some wonderful imagination is needed here to get your ball to the pins.”
He added, “My focus in the practice rounds will be playing shots from places you’re likely to miss fairways and greens. Hopefully that will help me have a good week.”