Avery: Watson's contending here again, with a different goal  PGATOUR.com Contributor PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- The leaderboard through 54 holes of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is chock full of major championship winners. Mickelson. Pavin. Furyk. Love III. Olazabal. Singh. Watson.  Tom Watson has his eye on a crystal prize. (Hunter Martin/ WireImage)
The calendar flipped back a few pages this week as the 1977 and '78 Bing Crosby Pro-Am winner chugged along like the Little Engine Who Remembered He Could. The other contenders may be more supple and hit it longer -- Tom Watson says he feels "insufficient" watching everyone else on the practice tee -- but at 6-under-par 210, he's tied for 14th. Only a few balky putts Saturday afternoon on his second nine at Spyglass Hill, where he matched par 72, cost the 57-year-old a spot in the heart of the top 10. Considering Watson shot 68 Friday at Pebble Beach, where he's made a smidgen of history, making a run at the leaders is his shimmering hope. "We'll see what happens at Pebble," Watson says of Sunday's final round. "You can get it really going pretty strong on the front nine. "I'm happy about the way I'm playing, but more importantly I'm happy about the way the team's playing. My son helped me by six shots again today and now we're trying to get some crystal. That's the main focus tomorrow -- to try and get some crystal." Watson and Watson, Tom and Michael, stand at 23-under 193, five strokes behind pro leader Phil Mickelson and Harry You, CEO of BearingPoint. They are in a three-way tie for second with another seven duos 21 under or better. So it will be a dogfight. And in the Watson family a dogfight is something to relish. Dad's here because of a sponsor's exemption, landed thanks to a letter he wrote to tournament officials asking to pair with his son in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Michael's 24, out of college and a businessman. He may have separated his shoulder playing tackle football at Thanksgiving but with Tom now 57 the time still seemed right to play. "If you look down on the brass plaque, underneath the first tee," Tom says, "you will see in 1941 there was a guy by the name of Ray Watson and Leonard Dodson. Ray Watson happened to be my father, and he and Leonard won the Pro-Am division in 1941 at Rancho Santa Fe, a long time ago." Perhaps one day Evan Mickelson, Davis Love IV and Qass Singh will know the feeling of competing on the Monterey Peninsula beside their fathers. They may walk up to each green and hear the warm applause for their father, feel the enthusiasm as he keeps clawing toward the lead. "I've never been at a tournament that my dad's won," Michael says. "The first vivid memory I have of him is winning at Memorial (in 1996) and Colonial (in 1998), in his late 40s. I have a very picturesque memory of when he sunk that putt at Memorial -- he was in a blue rain suit, he had about a 10-footer downhill." Michael was born three years after his dad's last British Open victory, in 1983 at Royal Birkdale in England, and four years after his 71st-hole chip-in took the 1982 U.S. Open. He is of a different generation and ability -- this week he gets six shots a round. But he's a mirror image in mannerisms: the stride with head down as if walking into a perpetual gale, the studious stance with hands clasped behind the back studying the next shot.
Pebble Beach and its brethren, Spyglass Hill and Poppy Hills, once again saw to it that major champs rose to the fore. Watson learned their difficulty beginning in 1967, when he first played Pebble Beach as a kid. While studying at Stanford University he'd drive down to play. Sometimes starter Ray Parga would let him out without paying the $10 green fee. "It takes moxie to play these courses," Tom says. "You have to know how to hit shots and play a variety of shots on these courses to play well. There's a lot of judgment involved. On a day like today, Pebble Beach, there's always judgment because you've got elevation changes and wind. The best players have the best judgment." Realistically speaking, the Watson name won't be engraved on the pro trophy. Crazy things can happen at Pebble Beach, but eight shots? Even a course record 63 might not suffice, especially with all those more recent major champs in his way. Wednesday afternoon Watson was invited into the media room to reminisce with writers. He hadn't played the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am since 1999. He spoke of winning the Open and his affection for the peninsula. A series of questions set him on a lengthy discussion of Tiger Woods. He compared eras past and present, of the ways they are different and the ways they are similar. "Well, it's ... golf is the same when you tee it up," he said. "Back in those days when you teed it up you were trying to beat everybody in the field. It's the same thing right now. It's as simple as that." Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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