Tom Watson gets emotional recounting final round with his dad

USA Today

28-01-2025

Tom Watson gets emotional recounting final round with his dad
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Tom Watson says what helped him win the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach
Tom Watson tells a story about what helped him win the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach
Tom Watson was on the verge of tears.
On Wednesday, the 75-year-old eight-time major champion attended the PGA Show in Orlando and was honored by the National Golf Course Owners Association with its Merit Award, the association's highest honor. He participated in an hour-long fire side chat with NGCOA CEO Jay Karen and touched on some of the highs and lows of his career, sprinkling in a few swing tips with advice on the business of the game that attendees could bring home to their clubs. But it was during the tail end of the session when Karen opened the questioning to members of the audience that one attendee asked what seemed like an innocuous question that struck a chord with Watson.
'What's your favorite memory you have about the game of golf whether it's playing or anything else that you can share with this room?'
Watson went silent for 10 seconds. 'Excuse me,' he finally said. Another 10 seconds of silence in the room as Watson tried to control his emotions.
'It was the last time I played with my dad,' he began. 'I'll tell you the story.'
Raymond Watson was a retired insurance salesman and former club champion at Kansas City (Mo.) Country Club, who stuck a cut-down, hickory-shafted 5-iron in his son's hands in 1955 at age six and immediately taught him the correct grip and stance. A scratch handicap player, Raymond died of a heart attack in 2000 at age 80 while in Hawaii to watch his son compete in a PGA Tour Champions event.
'My dad had a stroke when he was 78 years old but he loved to play. He'd go out in those 38-degree days with a stocking cap on, gloves and his long handles and corduroy pants and he'd go out with six clubs in a little bag and he'd walk around the golf courses and play nine holes,' Watson said. 'I'd always ask, 'What did you shoot, dad?' He'd say, 'Ah, I shot a newspaper 50.'
'Newspaper means to guess what you'd shot when you picked up. I gave myself a 7. I kept asking, 'What did you shoot?' He'd say, 'A newspaper 94.' Before he had a stroke he shot in the upper 70s, shooting his age at 78 years old. We'd go up to Michigan by Long Lake. We would spend 2-3 weeks up there every summer. His favorite course up there was Belvedere Golf Club in Charlevoix, beautiful (Willie) Watson course up there. And we're up there, this is 1999. The last round of golf we played in that trip was Belvedere. We got to the first tee and I said, 'All right, dad, here's the deal: No pick ups today.' The reason I said that was he hadn't broken 90 since the stroke. He got off to a great start. He was 3-over-par after 8. He's got this wired. Nine, he makes a double bogey, damn, but still, he's out in 41.'
Watson figured his dad could make 48 on the back side, no problem, but then he started making some double bogeys on the way to the house.
'We get to the last hole and he needs to make a bogey to shoot 89,' Watson continued. 'He hits a perfect drive, just smokes it out there. But the second shot, the stroke got him. He had a right-hand problem and he lost the club and the ball hit off the toe of this hybrid and went straight right and underneath a tree in fescue rough and bare dirt. Oh, shoot!
'I didn't have the heart to go over there. He took some club out and I'll never forget his last swing, whoosh, he couldn't take a full swing because of a tree limb that stopped his follow through but there's dust and the ball comes rocketing out and lands about 20 yards short of the green and rolls up like this (hands held close together). He's got it! I'm walking up there and I contemplated giving him the putt but knowing my father I knew he wouldn't accept it. I made him putt it and he missed it.'
But Raymond Watson still finished with a bogey for 89 and broke 90 for the first time since suffering a stroke.
'Walking off the green, he probably reacted just how I would've reacted,' Tom said. 'Dad, you know what you shot? Yeah, son, I know what I shot. He was pissed that he missed that short putt. That was the last round of golf I ever played with my dad.'
Watson's favorite memory involving golf had nothing to do with any of his greatest accomplishments but rather a round with his dad, the man who introduced him to the game. And everyone in that room at the Orange County Convention Center that hung on Watson's every word at the NGCOA conference closing luncheon will never forget the Hall of Famer's emotional response to a softball, open-ended question.