Tom Watson - "So This is Links Golf" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle.

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Then it started to You're known obviously for your great success in the Open Championship, having won five times on five different golf courses. Why don't you just tell us before we get into individual tournaments just about your experience with the open, why you came to love it so much, because you weren't that big a fan necessarily of Lynx Golf day one, were you?

Tom Watson 0:37

No, no, I hated Lynx golf. The way I got into uh the 1975 Open at Carnoustie was that uh I was I was an exempt player. I'd won uh I'd won the uh Byron Nelson Golf Classic and I'd won the year before at the Western. Uh but but the uh I think the Byron Nelson and in the in my position on the money list got me in as an exempt player. Uh I traveled over to uh London and spent some time with John Mahaffey and his uncle uh in London. We played a round of golf there, and then we traveled up to uh uh Edinburgh and up to up to Carnoosty, where we had a little rental house there in Monafeith, and we we drop our stuff off there and we go to the golf course to play a practice round the very first day we got there. And uh we we reached the golf course and out comes Keith McKenzie, who was the he was the secretary of the RNA. And Keith is he is a very infectious guy, and he says his name and welcomes us there, and and I and I I made the comment and said, I can't wait to play the golf course today. I said, Oh Tom, you can't play the golf course today. Well what? You can't play the golf course today, which is you know, this is three days before the open championship. The golf course is reserved for the qualifiers, the guy the people who had qualified over there for the golf course, for the golf tournament, for the open. So we ended up going to Mona Fith to play uh uh a round of golf there on a Lynx golf course there. And uh I'll never forget my first drive. Headed right down the middle of the fairway along with my halfy and Hubert Green, who was playing with me, and I lost the ball. And you said, What the hell am I doing here? Welcome to Lynx Golf. What type of golf is this? You know the ball eventually was found, but only after I hit, I just dropped one and played to the green, and halfy and green played on. And just for the last moment I went, you know, 30, uh 40 or 50 yards off to the left in the little hole down there, there was the golf ball. And that ball was hit down right down the middle of the fairway. And it hit a side slope like this, and it went off like this. And I said it. I don't know if I'm gonna like this or not.

Mike Gonzalez 3:01

We hope you enjoyed this bonus track of for the good of the game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Intro Music 3:20

Like they say, whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. When it started to slice, just smidge off line. It headed for two, but it bounced off nine. My candidates, as long as you're still in the state, you're okay.