Nicklaus and Watson Returning to Scene of Their Famous Duel

To those with a passion for golf, and for all the casual observers who have been touched by the long rivalry between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, a special anniversary will be observed this week.

So memorable a moment is it that Watson recalls the occasion as “the finest day in my life.”

For only the second time, the British Open will be played at Turnberry, Scotland, beginning Thursday, and the focus of conversation is certain to be the first championship staged there in 1977, truly one of the legendary windups in the history of the sport.

For the final 36 holes Watson and Nicklaus, then the two most dominating figures of golf, dueled head to head in a competition all to themselves. On those last two days the rest of the field was little more than backdrop as the championship evolved into match play between the two Americans.

Nicklaus played those two rounds in 66-65, nine under par for a very difficult layout, but it wasn’t good enough as Watson bettered him with 65-65 to win by a stroke.

“I remember on the 13th tee in the last round there were people all over the fairway and we had to wait for a little while,” Watson recalled recently during a tournament in the United States. “Jack and I hadn’t really said much during the day. But we were standing on the tee and I turned to him and said, ‘Jack, this is what it is all about, isn’t it?’ And he said, ‘It sure is.”’

At the last hole, with Watson nursing a one-shot lead, he put his second shot about two feet from the hole, seemingly ending the drama. Nicklaus had driven against a shrub, and even a great recovery onto the green left him about 30 feet from the hole. Nicklaus, though, proceeded to make the putt.

“I was prepared for him making that putt,” Watson said. “I expected him to. The crowd went wild and I just waited for a few seconds and let them calm down and then I just stepped up and made it.

“There is something I will never forget about that day. Linda (his wife) and I were in our room in the hotel (overlooking the course) a few hours after the award ceremony. The sun was setting and there wasn’t anybody on the course except maybe a couple of seagulls. Then all of a sudden we saw this lone piper walking along. He probably played about 45 minutes. It was a perfect ending to the finest day in my life.”

So dominating was this magnificent duo that Hubert Green, who finished third, was 11 shots behind the leader and the only other player to break par. Watson’s aggregate score of 12-under-par 268 remains the Open record.

Watson has won the Open five times, but has fallen upon difficult times of late. He is without a tournament victory since 1984, a slump he attributes to putting woes, and although he tied for the third round lead at the recent Greater Hartford Open, could not produce the victory he so much needs.

Nicklaus, at 46 some nine years older than Watson and a three-time Open titlist, also was winless for two years before capturing the Masters in April.

Along with Nicklaus and Watson, a strong contingent of Americans is expected to compete, including U.S. Open champion Ray Floyd, and Bob Tway, Andy Bean, Hal Sutton and Payne Stewart, who hold down the second through fifth positions on the current PGA earnings list. Australian Greg Norman, the leader with a record total of $547,779, also is entered, as is defending champion Sandy Lyle of Scotland, Spaniard Seve Ballesteros and West German Bernhard Langer.

Ballesteros, twice the Open champion, has won a record four consecutive tournaments in Europe and will be the favorite at Turnberry. Stewart was runner-up to Lyle last year at Royal St. George’s in Sandwich, England.

Mac O’Grady, despite confirmation of a 6-week suspension, also is expected in Turnberry. He gained his first PGA victory last week in the Greater Hartford.

Other Americans among the 92 players who earned automatic entry to the Open are Lee Trevino, the champion in 1971 and 1972, Curtis Strange, Fuzzy Zoeller, Jim Thorpe, Tom Kite, Craig Stadler, Corey Pavin, John Mahaffey, Mark O’Meara, Hubert Green and Lanny Wadkins.

The course at Turnberry is a par 70 and will play to 6,957 yards, 82 yards longer than in 1977. Since it is a links course, located on the sea, the weather at Turnberry could turn nasty, as it did during the third round in 1977 when the players had to seek shelter from a thunderstorm. The prevailing wind is from the west.