Lorne Rubenstein

Still Huck Finn
November 2, 2005

Golf fans seem to look up to certain players, or want to anyway. And many want golfers to be role models. I'm inclined to neither view, but that's not to say some players haven't really gotten my attention over the years.

Photo: © Chris Condon/WireImage Tom Watson claimed both the Charles Schwab Championship and the the Charles Schwab Cup.

Tom Watson stands tall in this regard.

Watson, of course, won the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Sonoma, Calif. on the weekend, closing with an eight-under par 64 to overcome leader Jay Haas. Again, Watson distinguised himself on the course. He's done that for 35 years, and he's also set himself apart off the course.

I remember running into Watson during the late 1980s at a tournament. The great Canadian golfer George Knudson had been taken diagnosed with lung cancer, Watson asked me to sit down and chat with him about George.

He had so many stories to tell about how well Knudson struck the ball, about his ability to control its flight. Watson spoke fondly of Knudson, and asked me to pass his regards on to him.

A short while later I did just that. Knudson was always happy to hear about and from Watson, for whom he had a deep respect. Knudson died not long after I ran into Watson.

Then, another time, I ran into Watson when a Canadian election was going on. Now, I don't expect PGA Tour players to know much about Canadian politics, but Watson knew plenty. We talked about various issues for some time.

Photo: © Getty Images Tom Watson still has the Huck Finn look he had at the beginning of his career.

Watson was a Democrat in those days. He's shifted to the right, which is just about where every one of his fellow pros is. Some things change, and some don't.

What hasn't changed is Watson's attitude to the game. He's always been one to accept whatever happens.

It's easy to accept the good stuff, so he was full of joy after he won the 1983 British Open at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club.

That was the first Open I attended, and I'll never forget the towering 2-iron he hit on the last hole, right over the flag.

Watson turned to his caddie Alfie Files, and said, "That's the one." He walked briskly to the green, as the crowds massed behind him. Watson had won his second straight British Open.

Things didn't work out as well the next year. Watson was in a battle with Seve Ballesteros down the closing holes of the Open at the Old Course in St. Andrews.

Standing over his ball in the extreme right of the 17th fairway the last day, Watson went back and forth between a 2 and 3-iron. He finally went for the longer club, but the shot didn't come off as planned, and went through the green onto the road.

Watson scraped a bogey five from there while Ballesteros was birdieing the last hole up ahead. I hardly saw Watson react on the 17th fairway or after he bogied the hole or after he finished.

Photo: © Getty Images Tom Watson had some great duels with Jack Nicklaus but none better than their battle at Turnberry in 1977.

It was as if he was saying, "So it goes." He followed Eleanor Roosevelt's advice to "Do your best, and then say the hell with it."

But he was affected. A profound silence seemed to settle over Watson.

Word was that he played solitaire all the way home on his flight from Scotland. Watson wouldn't win another British Open or another major. But he had won five British Opens, not a bad haul, along with the 1982 U.S. Open and the 1977 and 1981 Masters.

Funny, though. Golf fans I've talked to think more of the way Watson has handled the game and dealt with people in his orbit as the majors and other tournaments he's won.

He did so much for his late caddie and friend Bruce Edwards, and would be the first to say that the rewards were reciprocal. Watson continues to speak frequently about ALS, the disease from which Edwards died. He continues to raise money in search of a cure.

Watson is all about moving forward.

Fans appreciate his fundamental attitude that the game isn't always fair, and that anything can and will happen on the course.

Photo: © Matthew Stockman/Getty Images Tom Watson had a much closer relationship to Bruce Edwards than the typical player/caddy relationship.

Think along these lines of Watson's putting difficulties. He's admitted to the yips but there he is, still using a conventional putter and set-up.

He believes the long putter isn't a "stroke of golf," and he'd like to see it banned.

Watson plays the game properly. The guy shows us ways of coping with its stresses, and the yips rank high among them.

Watson's just decent. That's what it comes down to. Some years ago we arranged a time for a lengthy interview during the Players Championship. Watson didn't show up, and the next day he said he had a "brain fart" and apologized up and down, and then sat down to do the interview. He also offered to write a blurb for a book I wrote about Dornoch in Scotland, after I called him to discuss his experiences there. I didn't ask him to do this. He offered.

Watson said after he won the other day that his dad started him with the fundamentals, "the right grip and how to hook it, slice it, and he let me play."

He's still playing, very well, and with class.

Tom Watson's career major record

Results courtesy of GolfStats

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