During the sports year, there are not many events that I look forward to more than the four golf majors. They are especially exciting for me when Tiger Woods is in contention, because he is really was drove me to watch the majors. Tiger's pursuit of Jack Nicklaus's record 18 major championships has been an obsession of mine pretty much since Woods's first major championship victory at the 1997 Masters.Coming into the weekend, I was hopeful that Woods would win major #15, but when he missed just the second major cut of his professional career, I had to find someone to else to root for. Well, that was simple. An incredible, unlikely story was brewing with Tom Watson draining two long putts on 16 and 18 to tie for the 36-hole lead at the Open Championship (British Open). Why was this exciting? Because the man is two months shy of his 60th birthday! He was supposed to use this event as a tune up for the Senior British Open next weekend! He wasn't supposed to be leading the Open! The last major championship he won was in 1983! I wasn't even born yet!
Despite developing a strong rooting interest in this story, I figured Watson would fall off the leaderboard either Saturday or Sunday because there was no way that a man 13 years older than the oldest major champion ever could ever hold on. Well, the holes unfolded, and Watson was still on or near the top of the leaderboard. If someone took the lead away from him, they quickly found a way to give it right back. It looked like Ross Fisher might win it, then he quadruple bogeyed the third hole. Then it looked like Lee Westwood would finally win a major, but he couldn't find the fairway late. Matthew Goggin was right there, but did anyone take him seriously? They were all fading around Watson! Could this be happening? Only Stewart Cink was able to post -2 with an incredible birdie at the 18th.
I still didn't believe Watson would actually get it done. I figured he would choke it up or someone else would make an incredible shot. However, once Westwood wasn't able to eagle the 17th, I did the math. The lightbulb went off in my brain saying, "TOM WATSON IS ACTUALLY GOING WIN THE BRITISH OPEN!". All he had to do was birdie the 17th (which he did all week) and par the 18th (which he did all week). He gets the birdie at 17 and takes a one shot lead to the final hole! He finds the fairway with his tee-shot on 18! All you have to do, Tom, is put the ball on the green and you'll become the oldest major winner by THIRTEEN YEARS!
I have to say I was watching this off of the DVR at around midnight. I purposely stayed away from any television screens all day to avoid finding out the result. I almost made a big mistake opening the Internet at the local Apple store. But at this moment, watching Watson about to strike his final approach shot, I thought, this was all the well worth it!
Then it all caved in. Watson's approach shot rolled through the green into the fringe. I still hoped he could get up and down and win the championship, but it was not going to be easy. Hopes for a two-putt for the championship were now gone. The third shot back to the green left him an 8-foot putt for the championship. Please make it, please make it, DAMN! Short! Put some muscle in it! Off to a four-hole playoff with Stewart Cink. I held out hope that he may somehow win the playoff, but there was no shot in hell. The old man was tired out and lost the playoff to Cink by six strokes. A great sports moment was so close, but yet so far.
I'm not really disappointed that the winner was Cink, but obviously more disappointed history didn't happen. In fact, except for Tiger, I actually would have cheered for Cink against just about anyone else. He has been very steady on the tour and a major championship victory was well overdue. It's well deserved and this win will stamp his career. However, his win robbed the sports world of a defining moment. Even if you are not a golf fan, the magnitude of this story would have been huge. It is not absurd to think that this moment would have ranked up there with the Miracle on Ice. Well, maybe not that epic, but certainly no worse than the second page of the greatest sports moments.
I will do my best to move on and get excited for next month's PGA Championship to see if Woods can win major #15, but it will be hard to shake what could have been at Turnberry. The world of sports was indeed robbed by just one lousy stroke of one of it's most remarkable stories ever.
Pat Morgan
