Tom Watson recalls golden days

Tom Watson will be taking a trip down memory lane next week.

Two months away from his 50th birthday, Watson will inevitably relive the week that changed his life when the Open championship makes its Carnoustie comeback after 24 years.

It was on the tough Scottish links in 1975 that the Stanford University psychology graduate began a run which in the space of nine years was to take him within two holes of matching Harry Vardon's record six Open titles.

Watson, having defeated Australian Jack Newton in a play-off, went on to triumph as well as Turnberry in 1977 (his never-to-be-forgotten 'Duel in the Sun' with Jack Nicklaus), Muirfield in 1980, Troon in 1982 and then Birkdale the following year.

With two Masters victories and the 1982 US Open - scene of his 71st hole chip-in to thwart Nicklaus again - Watson's place among the greats of the game is secure.

But his return to Carnoustie is with a definite aim. To par the 250-yard 16th, one of the most demanding "short" holes in world golf.

Watson failed to get his three in all four rounds of the 1975 championship and again in the 18-hole play-off and he has said: "My goals this year are to get into the Ryder Cup team and to par the 16th at Carnoustie.

"And I don't care if it is in the practice round."

The Ryder Cup target looks a long way off, however. Watson missed the halfway cut in six successive majors prior to last month's US Open, where he finally broke that spell but finished only 57th.

But he has not given up hope of tasting the big time again before he switches his main attentions to the Seniors Tour.

"Winning the Colonial last year enforces the feeling that I still have it. That I'm not finished yet," he added.

"I've never lost the belief that I could win another major. Even during the dark years I figured something would happen."

The so-called 'dark years' was the time between 1987 and 1996 when Watson failed to have a single success on the US circuit and looked a complete mess over short putts.

That was never more apparent than the 1994 Open. Ten years on from the dramatic finish at St Andrews, when Seve Ballesteros produced the highlight of his career to stop Watson winning again, another opportunity to match Vardon's record presented itself back at Turnberry.

Watson led after seven holes of the final round, but as a moment of history beckoned he horribly three-putted both the eighth and ninth greens and was never a factor again.

He knows that may prove to be his last chance.

Watson, whose personal life took a bit of a battering when his wife of 25 years filed for divorce at the end of 1997 and he admitted he was drinking more than was probably wise, accepts that time is running out if he is to join Vardon.

"If I'm on I can play. But I'm off a lot now. I feel that some of my strength is not there any more. My ability to turn and really create a lot of clubhead speed."

The point was rammed home to him last year watching his 15-year-old son Michael play in the Junior Open at Formby.

"He drove into heather six inches deep, but hit it onto the green. I can't do that any more. I can't advance the ball very far, so I have to keep it in play. When I do I have a chance."

The US Open last month was Watson's 100th major and if he did make it a triumphant return to Carnoustie he would become the oldest ever winner of any of the four major championships.

To cheer him in his attempt, though, it is perhaps worth remembering that Vardon was runner-up in the US Open at the age of 50 and only last year Nicklaus finished sixth in the Masters at 58.

Watson, made an honorary member of the Royal and Ancient Club in May, still clearly remembers his first experience of links golf.

It was meant to be at Carnoustie, but on arriving from London and expecting to be allowed on for a practice round he was told by then Royal and Ancient secretary Keith Mackenzie that the course was reserved for qualifiers.

Instead he took himself off to nearby Monifieth and recalls: "At the second or fourth hole I hit a drive right down the middle of the fairway. We started looking and I was about ready to give up and went over to a pot bunker about 30 yards left and there it was - dead.

"I didn't like it at all, but by the late 1970s the subtleties had begun to make an impression on me. Bob Jones went through the same adjustment. You have to realise that golf - like life - is not meant to be fair.

"Now I just can't get enough of it. It's a guessing game and I love that. There are so many ways to get the ball to the hole and I get pleasure in trying to find them.

"Jack (Nicklaus) has always believed that the game should be played through the air. I think he is only partially right. There are situations, especially with wind and weather, that call for a ground game.

"You just call in the army rather than the air force."

Why did he become so good at it? "A lot of it has to do with my ability to get the ball up and down in bad conditions. Seve was the absolute master of that. You could put him in the gorse and still be sure he would make a par somehow.

"I kind of follow that track. I've been known to make a Watson par here or there.

"If the British Open didn't exist I'd still take a trip over every year just to play the great courses."

And even if he does not contend, it is worth listening to Watson to find out who might.

Last year at Birkdale he tipped O'Meara to win with a winning score of level par. Both came true - and now Watson waits to see if his dreams do too.