HE WAS, as a glittering quintet of Open Championship victories between 1975 and '83 more than amply demonstrates, the premier links golfer of his generation. Armed with a game perfectly suited to the vagaries of golf by the seaside, Tom Watson dominated the world's oldest and most important event to the extent that he remains the only man in almost 150 years to have claimed the Claret Jug on five different courses. Beat that Tiger.
Sadly, however, that was then and this is now, in more ways than one. Now 58 and saddled with a bad hip that will eventually require surgery, Watson doesn't hit the ball with as much speed as he used to, nor can he escape from rough in the way he c
ould in his pomp. But the natural effects of the ageing process aren't the only things that have diminished the golfing experience for one of the game's most thoughtful participants.
As it has for so many of golf's superior exponents over the last 15 years or so, modern equipment and balls have made the on-course questions asked of Watson less interesting to answer.
"I am very adamant that I think the ball should be brought back," he says, echoing the sentiments of many others of his generation, including Jack Nicklaus. "It goes too far. It also goes straighter and is therefore easier to control in a wind. But there are a lot of factors involved other than just pure distance. The rate at which the ball spins is important. They spin less these days and that is one reason they go farther. A higher spin rate would exaggerate misses and send the ball more off line than at present.
"The manufacturers got ahead of the USGA and the R&A. That's the bottom line. Those companies made balls that conform to rules that unfortunately allowed them to go too far. They're too easy to play. And that is true for all classes of player. Yes, they make less of a difference to the handicap golfer, but they still make a difference. Just not to the degree they do for the better leading professionals."
As you'd expect of a Stanford graduate – his fellow alumnus and close friend, Jim Vernon, is the current president of the USGA – Watson has solutions to the problem that has led to the vast majority of the current generation of players never knowing the joy that comes with perfectly shaping a shot into a stiff crosswind.
"When the ball goes as straight as it does now, you don't have to 'work' it from left-to-right or right-to-left; all you have to do is aim right at your target," continues Watson. "That takes a skill factor out of the game.
"The old guys had that skill factor, but the younger guys don't seem to have that same ability. Yes, they learn how to play that famous Tiger Woods 'stinger' – I saw a few of the kids using it at Birkdale last week – and that is a useful shot to have. But can they hit a stinger from right-to-left or left-to-right? That's what I want to see them doing, but right now I'm not.
"In defence of the young players, they have never had to learn a variety of shots. They have three wedges, for example. They have never had to add loft to their 56-degree wedge to make it play as if it has 60-degrees. I'm sure they understand how to hit the ball a little higher, but it's a lot easier to hit a high lofted shot with a 60-degree wedge than it is to hit one with only 56-degrees."
Okay, it's time to face up. If he were in charge of the game, what would Watson do?
"I would go to the R&A and say, 'come let us reason together about three main issues'," he declares. "The first would be the golf ball. We need to reduce the golf ball by 10% then see how that goes.
"The second issue is the size of the drivers. I'd reduce them to, say, 240cc.
"And the third issue is square grooves. I would definitely change the groove configuration on irons so that a ball hit from the rough would not spin as much as it does now.
"The issue is not the long putter. Nor is it the loft on wedges, or even the number of clubs. None of those is as important as the ball, the driver and the grooves. The way the game is played now, you can take a bigheaded driver, mis-hit it by as much as an inch and a quarter from sweet spot and lose only four yards. If you mis-hit by that much with an old conventional, wooden-headed driver, you'd lose as much as 49 yards. That means the game is easier than it used to be.
"If we fixed those three things I don't think we'd have to worry about anything else. Although it must have broken Seve Ballesteros' heart to see so many people able to hit the shots only he could hit, all because they have so much loft on their wedges. That's one of the second wave of things I'd do if I were in charge of golf: I'd limit the length of putters and maybe the number of clubs in the bag. Do we really need 14 clubs? If we went to 10 it would make golf a cheaper game to play. That might be a good thing to do.
"Most players – maybe 50% of them – don't need 14 clubs. They really don't. All they need is a club they can hit off the tee on the par-4s and par-5s; a putter; a couple of wedges; a couple of hybrids and a few irons, maybe 7-iron to wedge."
Another unfortunate side-effect of the metal-headed drivers, hot balls and ever-more lofted wedges has been the reaction of officialdom with regard to the set-up of the courses the leading players are asked to play. Not only have many of golf's greatest venues been stretched to their boundary fences – and sometimes beyond – holes are now routinely cut no more than four yards from the edge of ever-faster greens. Ironically in a game that prides itself on having the same set of rules for all classes of player, the gap between professional and amateur has never been larger.
"The greens are ultimately the defence on any golf course, especially in America," contends Watson. "On a links over here that defence is the wind and the rough areas off the fairway. The wind takes you into those rough areas and the rough areas are tough. That is a style of golf you just don't find in the US.
"The greens are more complicated in America because the wind is generally less of a factor. If I was designing a course today – and I was allowed free rein – I would build greens that run as little as seven or eight on the stimpmeter. That's all I'd have and they'd never get any faster. But they'd have lots of slope to them.
"Right now, greens are generally too fast. Which means you have to flatten them out too much. Or you have to put too many 'table tops' on the greens, places where you put the flag. I disagree with that. I'd like us to go back to slower and slopier greens."
All of which, one fears, makes too much sense in a world that is sadly driven by the narrow-minded economic pressure – aka the threat of law suits – exerted by certain equipment manufacturers rather than what is best for the game in the long-term. Still, on a cheerier note, it is always good to see Watson back in Scotland, a place where, not surprisingly, he feels right at home.
"I get a very warm reception here," he smiles. "Golf is such a strong thread running through the lives of so many Scots. In other places the people don't have that passion and don't understand it. It's foreign to them. So they don't really have a feeling for the Open Championship or understand what a good shot really is. Of course, I think my winning five Open Championships helps too!"
That it does and already this great champion's thoughts are looking ahead to St Andrews in July 2010, in what will be his last appearance in an Open. When Nicklaus paid his final farewell on the Old Course three years ago, both Watson and the Golden Bear were unashamedly in tears as the pair walked up golf's most famous final fairway.
"I'll probably cry like Jack did," he admits. "It will be a sad time for me. I won't look forward to that last walk off that 18th tee. Of course, maybe I will finish in the top-10 and it won't be my last one. St Andrews is a links, it isn't too long and I know I can play well there."
So the old competitiveness lives on. Happily, some things in golf never change.
The full article contains 1540 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
