Tom Watson - "Winning the Open at Birkdale" SHORT TRACK

Intro Music 0:07

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

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Then it started to let's move on to your uh fifth and final open championship win. In this one, you decided to do something different. You'd already won four in Scotland. You said, let's go win one in England.

Tom Watson 0:26

Well, we played at Burkdale. That's one of my favorite golf courses. Really, truly is a beautiful golf course. Um and uh frankly, I wasn't playing very well when I played it at Burkdale, but again, I I played it smart. I hit the key shots, I played the sixth hole properly, which is one of the key holes in the golf course. A long dog leg right par par four. Um and uh you know I I made my birdies where you're supposed to make your birdies and just kind of stayed out of out of uh I didn't step out on any landmines that week. Um which are it's which is so easy to do when you're playing open championship golf. Um I finally made a putt in the last round. I was you know, just I was just kind of hanging in there. Um I didn't I didn't bury the 15th, I don't think, in the last round. Then the 16th, uh I I hit it on the grant, hit a good good T ball driver, good second shot into the wind up the hill there, and I had about a 25-footer, and I hold the putt. I hold the putt. And that gave me a uh I believe that gave me a one-shot lead. And uh so yeah, we it was nipping to anybody could have uh won that tournament. Hale Erwin, he uh I didn't know it, but yeah, he he he he whiffed a two-inch putt when he got got hot after he missed he missed a putt, and he goes over there and he kind of rakes rakes his putter over the top of the ball and he whiffs it. He had to count that as a stroke. Uh so any anyway, it uh um yeah, it was nip and tuck. And uh I do remember playing to the eighteenth hole though. Probably the uh you know the finest last hole uh I ever played. I mean, I could I you can argue that the 17th, uh the 18th hole at Turnbury where I hit uh the drive and the and the and the seven iron to two feet was better. But uh in this particular instance playing into the wind at Birkdale, bunkers on the right at the corner. It's a tough t-shirt. Right into the wind. I hit as good a drive as I could. I hit a power cut in the middle of the fairway, and I sat there, we waited about it seemed like 15 or 20 minutes because Stadler was making it making a bundle and they're having rulings and things like that ahead of me. So I was waiting in the fairway with 215 yards, I think, to the hole. And um I hit the finest two iron I think I've ever hit in competition. I hit it started just right of the flag, it drew into the wind, and uh then the left or right, into the wind, it dropped it and it was going right down the top of the flag. But I never saw where it ended up because back in those days they allowed the gallery to just the final shot, they would run, they would just stampede past you like this, and then cult and it's like the Red Sea coming back together in front of you like this. Um so I never saw where the ball ended up. But I knew by the I I I I think I knew that it was it was, you know, uh there's probably in a in a makeable putt this since I was hoping it wasn't going to be forty feet short or forty feet long where I had to struggle to two putt to win. And uh I never you know, breaking through the crowd there, I finally saw the ball. And uh I think I'd get this down in two. It was about 15 feet short of the hole, and and uh I uh hit the putt. I remember hitting the putt in the neck of the putter. I missed hit it, and it ended up uh you know, hit uh about about a foot short. But uh uh and I back in those days I didn't leave very many putts short, but that one fortunately I did leave it short and I could tap it into win.

Mike Gonzalez 4:21

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Intro Music 4:45

It went smack down the fairway. Just smack it off line. As long as you're still in the stage, you're okay.