Late on Friday afternoon, Tom Watson made the long walk up the hill to Augusta’s 18th green for the 134th and final time in a Masters. Among the many people gathered to welcome him he would have recognised Johnny Paulk, who has been working as an announcer here almost as long as Watson has been playing the course. It is Paulk’s job to give the crowd a short introduction to each of the players coming on to the green. Watson does not need one and his list of achievements is so long that he had arrived on the edge long before Paulk had finished talking, so his words were drowned out by the adoring applause. Watson clapped back, thanking the fans for all for their support, beat his fist against his heart to show how much it meant, then strolled on to set himself for his final couple of putts.
Watson’s approach shot had gone long, way up to the back of the plateau beyond the pin. He was 66ft away from the hole, but barely tapped the ball. It rolled around to the left, up on to the slope in front of the bunker, and curled around towards the hole. For a moment it looked like it might slide in, but it ambled to a stop 10in or so short. The crowd sighed and Watson dropped his putter and spread his arms wide, as if to say “I tried”.
He said later that he felt all the applause meant “that maybe I succeeded in what I tried to do as a kid: I hit shots. I hit shots that they will remember.”
He very nearly made another one for them. Instead, he tapped in the putt for a last par, then thanked his two partners, Lee Westwood and Charley Hoffman. Westwood’s caddie, Billy Foster, bowed low as Watson walked from the green.
Watson’s great mate Ben Crenshaw was there waiting for him and, after Watson’s playing partners, was one of the first to shake his hand. In 1977, Watson beat Crenshaw by a distance after the two of them started the final day tied in the lead. In 1984, Crenshaw beat Watson by two shots after scoring 68 on the Sunday. Those were the days when Watson was a fixture at the top of the leaderboard, and finished in the top 10 11 times in 12 years. He won it twice, the first time that one in 1977, when he also held off Jack Nicklaus’s charge down the back nine by holing a 20ft putt for a birdie on 17 and then in 1981 when he beat Nicklaus again, along with Johnny Miller.
It was only last year that Crenshaw made his own farewell to the course. It was said then that Watson might have decided to play one more year to allow his pal to have the stage all to himself. Back to back like that, these valedictory rounds could start to feel a little saccharine, especially since Augusta National tend to lay it all on so thick. But Watson deserved the send-off and there was no doubting the sincerity of his reception from the gallery.
Besides, he is such a fierce competitor (it was only 2009 that he finished second in The Open at Turnberry and he finished tied 18th here the following year) that, as he said: “I didn’t feel like it was a final walk until the last couple of holes, because I still had a shot at it. And that’s just me.”
Earlier in the week, the Augusta chairman, Billy Payne, guessed that Watson’s farewell would have to wait till Sunday because he would make the cut.
Watson missed it by two strokes, though he was “trying his damndest”, because: “I just like that thrill of being in the hunt, having that pressure on.” Even on the 16th he was thinking “if I make that putt, and I birdie 17, I’m right in here, I’m playing the weekend”. But, he said, “when you’re playing to make the cut, there’s some pressure there, but it’s not like coming down the stretch to win a tournament”.
That is his fix and from now on he’ll get it on the senior tour. “I doubt if I’ll play against the kids anymore,” he said. “That’s the reason I’m not playing here anymore. These kids are hitting it up there and they are hitting seven- and eight-irons on 18, and I’m back trying to hit a three-wood on that green. It’s a little bit out of my league now.” The kids, he said, “just hit the ball too far”.
Watson, now 66, will be back, and not only to do the glad-handing duties. On Wednesday, he stood in for Arnold Palmer in the par-three contest, to make up a threesome with Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus. There’s talk that he will take over Palmer’s duties as an honorary starter too, though he’s too polite to discuss the possibility – “that’s not my decision to make”.
If it does happen then, combative as he is, you guess it will not give him quite the same satisfaction.
