SF Examiner: Likeable Watson forced to deal with sting of defeat
By Art Spander
Examiner Columnist
Losing, we have been told, is the great American sin. But was it sinful what Tom Watson did at the British Open? Surely, it was disappointing. The idea in sports is to win.
The reality is that more times than not we lose.
“The taste of defeat,” wrote basketball star and U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, “has a richness of experience all its own.”
The memory of J.T. Snow hunched over and staring at his locker after the seventh game of the 2002 World Series forever will remain. Snow and the Giants had that Series won, had a 5-0 lead in Game 6. Yet they didn’t win.
And there was Snow contemplating what could have been, what Giants fans to this day believe should have been.
Tom Watson is very much a part of the Bay Area as the Giants and A’s and the rest of the franchises. He came from Missouri, but was a Stanford man ... still is a Stanford man.
No cheering in the press box is the yardstick to which American journalists must adhere. An event must be approached without bias. In this British Open, however, I cheered silently for Watson.
Not only because of his age, not only because a 59-year-old golfer finishing first in a major championship tournament would have been the sports story of the century, an irresistible tale of persistence and implausibility, but because in this world of fraudulence and dishonesty, Tom Watson is genuine, truthful.
In the winter of 1968 as a Stanford freshman, Watson for the first time competed in the San Francisco Amateur at Harding Park. In the match-play portion he hit an errant shot, into the trees, at the 10th hole I think it was, and after he putted out for what presumably was a par, he said he had moved the ball accidentally at address, thus had a bogey and lost the hole.
No one saw his transgression. The ball had remained virtually in the same place it had been. He received no advantage. But Tom Watson was governed by the rules of golf, as well as his conscience. For him, there was only one way to play the game.
Tom has had his moments, created his legacy. He won five British Opens, two Masters and then at Pebble Beach in 1982 in the U.S. Open. He was involved with Sandy Tatum and Robert Trent Jones II in the creation of Spanish Bay Golf Links on the Monterey Peninsula and has taken part in charity events at Stanford.
He can do without our tears, even though symbolically he deserves them.
Watson played so well for so long in the Open, until the last of the 72 holes, and then as the Bay Area, as America, as the world of golf winced, he messed up, dropped into a playoff and lost to Stewart Cink.
“This ain’t a funeral, you know,” Watson told a grim-faced pack of writers in what the Open still calls the “Press Centre.”
No, it was a defeat, supposedly enriching an athlete’s experience.
You looked at Watson as you did Snow back in 2002 and found that concept very hard to understand.
Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.
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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Likeable-Watson-forced-to-deal-with-sting-of-defeat-51368017.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company
Examiner Columnist
Losing, we have been told, is the great American sin. But was it sinful what Tom Watson did at the British Open? Surely, it was disappointing. The idea in sports is to win.
The reality is that more times than not we lose.
“The taste of defeat,” wrote basketball star and U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, “has a richness of experience all its own.”
The memory of J.T. Snow hunched over and staring at his locker after the seventh game of the 2002 World Series forever will remain. Snow and the Giants had that Series won, had a 5-0 lead in Game 6. Yet they didn’t win.
And there was Snow contemplating what could have been, what Giants fans to this day believe should have been.
Tom Watson is very much a part of the Bay Area as the Giants and A’s and the rest of the franchises. He came from Missouri, but was a Stanford man ... still is a Stanford man.
No cheering in the press box is the yardstick to which American journalists must adhere. An event must be approached without bias. In this British Open, however, I cheered silently for Watson.
Not only because of his age, not only because a 59-year-old golfer finishing first in a major championship tournament would have been the sports story of the century, an irresistible tale of persistence and implausibility, but because in this world of fraudulence and dishonesty, Tom Watson is genuine, truthful.
In the winter of 1968 as a Stanford freshman, Watson for the first time competed in the San Francisco Amateur at Harding Park. In the match-play portion he hit an errant shot, into the trees, at the 10th hole I think it was, and after he putted out for what presumably was a par, he said he had moved the ball accidentally at address, thus had a bogey and lost the hole.
No one saw his transgression. The ball had remained virtually in the same place it had been. He received no advantage. But Tom Watson was governed by the rules of golf, as well as his conscience. For him, there was only one way to play the game.
Tom has had his moments, created his legacy. He won five British Opens, two Masters and then at Pebble Beach in 1982 in the U.S. Open. He was involved with Sandy Tatum and Robert Trent Jones II in the creation of Spanish Bay Golf Links on the Monterey Peninsula and has taken part in charity events at Stanford.
He can do without our tears, even though symbolically he deserves them.
Watson played so well for so long in the Open, until the last of the 72 holes, and then as the Bay Area, as America, as the world of golf winced, he messed up, dropped into a playoff and lost to Stewart Cink.
“This ain’t a funeral, you know,” Watson told a grim-faced pack of writers in what the Open still calls the “Press Centre.”
No, it was a defeat, supposedly enriching an athlete’s experience.
You looked at Watson as you did Snow back in 2002 and found that concept very hard to understand.
Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.
- - - - - -
http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Likeable-Watson-forced-to-deal-with-sting-of-defeat-51368017.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company