Champions Tour Insider: Watson's perseverance

text size

Gross/Getty Images

Denis Watson has collected four titles on the Champions Tour since joining the circuit in 2005.

Mar. 11, 2009
By Vartan Kupelian, PGATOUR.COM Contributor

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Denis Watson knew something had to give when the final round of the AT&T Champions Classic began last year.

Watson was hitting it good but getting very little return on his game. With 18 holes left to play at Valencia Country Club, Watson was 7 shots behind. Normally, that's enough to let down the guard and start thinking of the next stop on the Champions Tour.

Not for Watson.

"I'll tell you a story," he said recently. "I was very frustrated. I had played extremely well both days."

On the ride from the golf course, Watson's wife, Susan, posed a question.

"My wife said, 'Mom wants to know if you think you can finish in the top 10,'" Watson recalled. "I said, 'As well as I'm playing, I think I can win if I could just get it going."

Watson got it going all the way to the finish line and grabbed a playoff victory to jump-start another stellar year on the Champions Tour. He was one of 10 multiple winners and one of 19 golfers who reached the $1 million mark. He achieved both those levels for the second straight year.

In 2007, Watson was named rookie of the year in a vote of Champions Tour golfers and was honored by the Golf Writers Association of America with the Ben Hogan Award for persevering through a long list of physical ailments to continue and excel in his career.

In four starts this season, his best finish came last week at Newport Beach Country Club, a T4 with rounds of 67-68-70 -- 205, 8-under-par. That followed a T29 at The ACE Group Classic, which was the result of a final-round 68. That's four solid rounds in a row, which suggests Watson is beginning to find his groove.

Watson capitalized on what he called "an incredible break" to get it going in the final round last year. He escaped with a par at the ninth hole after hitting a tee shot into a bunker where it came to rest against a leaf.

"I didn't know what it was going to do," he said. "It shot way right behind a tree. I had to hit a perfect shot to get it into a (greenside) bunker. It was the only play."

Watson pulled it off and survived the scare.

"That was inspiring," he said. "Really good. It kind of got me fired up."

Watson's confidence that week last year came from "some of the best practice sessions I could remember.

"I thought, 'Man, if I could just hit it like this on the golf course I really have a chance and I did on Sunday when I needed to.'"

Watson's affection for the tree-lined Valencia course runs deep.

"It's a great golf course," Watson said. "You have to hit a lot of good shots. It was in perfect shape last year. Obviously, the conditions the last day made it extremely challenging."

Watson dealt with those challenges -- and particularly the high winds -- better than anyone else to shoot that 65. He kept it going in the playoff when, on the third extra hole, he hit a majestic 9-iron shot to within two feet of the flagstick for an easy birdie.

"The greens complexes are so big that the areas you hit to are very small," said Watson, identifying another of Valencia's demands. "When you are playing it in a wind like that, if you don't hit it fantastic, you don't get it close enough to make many putts. It's always challenging because the wind swirls among the trees and it's very difficult to judge your shots.

"I had a good day. I was fortunate. I started with an eagle on the first hole. Chipped in for eagle at 9. I hit some good shots so it didn't seem like it was playing as hard as it could have."

Another of the pivotal sequence of shots in Watson's victory was an up-and-down from 130 yards at the 17th.

Of course, the 18th at Valencia is a hole where anything can happen, and usually does.

"A phenomenal golf hole," Watson said. "A lot of exciting stuff has happened at 18. The hole is through a valley, uphill to the top of a mound, then down and up to the green perched on top of the hill. The green has a lot of movement to it. You have to hit it in the right place otherwise it will roll off the green."

Champions Tour Insider Notes:

• Valencia Country Club is a Robert Trent Jones, Sr., design built in 1965. It measures 6,959 yards and plays to par 36-36 -- 72. Multiple winners at Valencia include Joe Inman, who won three straight in 1998-2000; Gil Morgan 1996-97; Tom Kite 2002 and 2006; and Tom Purtzer 2003 and 2007.

• Gary Player is back in the field at Valencia for the first time since 2002. Player, 73, has bettered his age four times this year, including three straight rounds in the season-opening event in Hawaii.

• Loren Roberts will try to snap a streak of back-to-back playoff losses at Valencia. He lost to Tom Purtzer in a playoff in 2007 and Denis Watson last year...Purtzer has six top 10 finishes in seven appearances in the tournament.

• Major stats: Nineteen major winners with a total of 40 victories in the Grand Slam events are in the 79-player field.