Veteran Watson comes so close

He came so close, but ultimately 59-year-old golfing veteran Tom Watson fell cruelly just short of winning the Open Gold Championship at the weekend.

Playing at the west-coast Scottish course at Turnberry, it would have been Watson’s sixth Open title, 26 years after his last one.

Watson won at Turnberry before in 1977, and for all four rounds of the 2009 event he was at or near the top of the leaderboard. But a missed putt to give him a bogey five at the par four eighteenth meant that he had to go into a four-hole play-off with fellow American Stewart Cink. Unlike Watson 36-year-old Cink had never won a major. Now was his time as, unfortunately for Watson, the latter couldn’t sustain the magic that had kept him going over 72 holes, and Cink clinched the famous Claret jug in the setting sun.

Veteran Watson would have been a hugely popular winner as the crowds cheered, applauded and rose to him throughout the final round.

Watson commented: “It’s a great disappointment. It tears your gut. But I take from this week just a lot of warmth, a lot of spirituality, in the sense that there was something out there. It helped me along.”

  What's this?