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Tom Watson, a two-time winner of the Masters, is no different from Fred Ridley, the Augusta National chairman, in suggesting that talk about distance control has gone on for long enough. But where Ridley warned that Augusta might need to come up with “other options” if the USGA and the R&A fail to take what the club see as appropriate action, Watson has a more straightforward solution. While he admits to being something of an outlier on the subject, he thinks they should leave the players to hit as far as they can.
Warming to his theme, the now 71-year-old Watson added that he, for one, loved seeing players knocking the ball a country mile, and that the same applied to the average fan: “It brings excitement and fan support into the game.” He backed up his view with a reference to the Arnold Palmer Invitational when Bryson DeChambeau went for the green at the par-5 16th hole by carrying his ball 370 yards over water.
“That made headlines and got people excited about watching golf,” he continued. “I love the fact that it got people excited, so that’s why I say, ‘Forget the distance standards. Please let the players play and let us have fun watching them.’ ”
“ ... if you keep your body in good shape, you really do not start losing your strength until your late 60s or early 70s. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone over 50 were to win a major.”
TOM WATSON
Asked if he was concerned a new wave of Bryson DeChambeaus might put paid to a player doing as he did in coming within a whisker of winning a major at age 59, the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry, Watson was in two minds.
“You cannot predict the future as far as injuries are concerned but today’s players are working out more than we did,” he said. “If that means they are going to harm their bodies, who knows how things will go.
“Maybe, though, it could actually increase the chances of older players winning. Body condition is very important and, if you keep your body in good shape, you really do not start losing your strength until your late 60s or early 70s. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone over 50 were to win a major.”
Inevitably, the conversation turned to Bernhard Langer’s and Lee Westwood’s chances last week. He was hugely admiring of both while making the following reservations. In the case of 63-year-old Langer, he said he no longer had the power to shoot “the really low scores like some of the younger guys,” and that it was not just off the tee that it mattered. Speaking of his own Masters experiences, he said there came a time when he did not have the necessary control to stop the ball into some of the par-4s.
Moving on to the 47-year-old Westwood, he felt constrained to mention putting in the same breath as he was singing the Englishman’s praises: “Older players need to be able to make the 5-footers they made as a kid.”
Going back to the day he came so close to being the oldest major winner, Watson lived through it all again when watching then 37-year-old Roger Federer missing out on the two match points he had to win Wimbledon in 2019.
“I remember watching that and I was so disappointed that he could not quite get over the line,” said Watson, speaking on the 40th anniversary of his second victory at Augusta National. “It still hurts to feel the pain I felt for him. We don’t stop our lives because of disappointment and a setback, and both Roger and I – we are fellow Rolex testimonees – had the luxury of having won major championships. In other words, they weren’t the only chances we had of winning.”
With Watson having played Augusta 43 times before calling a halt to his Masters exploits in 2016, he can come across nowadays as much as a patron as a past player. Apart from watching DeChambeau giving the ball a mighty clout, he gave his view on why the Masters tends to be people’s preferred major: “It’s the most familiar of any tournament that we all watch, simply because it is played at the same course every year. People know what the 12th hole is and the tragedies it has caused in the history of the tournament. They can feel for themselves the tension involved when a player steps on to that 12th tee and has to play over Rae’s Creek – and they enjoy it more because they are invested in it.”
Watson revisited how a long-ago 6 at that par-3 probably cost him a third win. More recently, of course, it was where Jordan Spieth and Francesco Molinari scuppered their chances. “As Jack Nicklaus said last year,” added Watson, “there are six shots you have to play well at Augusta and that tee shot at the 12th is one of them.” The others which Nicklaus identified were the tee shot at the second; the second shot at the 11th, “where you cannot afford to hit left of the green;” the second or third shot at the 13th; and the shot over water at the 15th.
Heaven knows how many of last week’s field fell at those hurdles.
With Rolex hosting Watson’s pre-Masters interview, the thought occurred that the player and the company have enjoyed one the longest relationships in sport.
On that very subject, Watson regaled us with the story of how, as a kid, he would envy everything about Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, from their shotmaking to their Perpetual Day-Date watches. And how, through the years, the Rolex way of doing things – “100 percent to the best of their ability” – had had no small impact on him.
When, many years ago, he passed $1 million in career earnings, his wife presented him with the same timepiece worn by his heroes.
That watch and Watson are still going strong.
Top: Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros at the 1981 Masters
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