nal round on the television monitor in the tent. “So, I open up the flap in the goofy little blue tent to get the view of Carmel Bay and I settle in,” he recalled. In comes Jack Nicklaus. “He’s in a great mood and for good reason,” says Fay. “He thinks he’s won his fifth Open. He signs his card. Doesn’t know me from Adam.” Under gray, cool skies and with a breeze blowing right to left, Watson and Edwards calculated the shot at 209 yards. Edwards, who had now been working for Watson for nearly a decade, had not been on the bag for any of Watson’s here- tofore five major championships. He wanted one as badly as his boss. As they considered the shot, the duo realised they were between clubs. It would either be a 2-iron or a 3-iron. Edwards lobbied for the 3, reasoning that the harder Watson swings, the better he tends to play. Watson, on the other hand, was concerned about the need to carry the hole’s massive left green-front bunker. The downside of the 2-iron was that when combined with a few teaspoons of US Open adrenalin, it could potentially leave him long and left, which with the pin deep in the back left position, was, well, a place that Bob Rosburg might describe as dead. Looking on from the gallery were major-worthy notables such as the unrivalled king of golf journalism, Herb Wind, the elfin golf historian Bob Sommers, and … Rainbow Man. His actual name is Rollen Stewart, but if you were a sports fan in the 1980s, you knew him best as the guy who wore those rainbow wigs and T-shirts printed with religious references and biblical citations. On this day his shirt advised viewers, “Repent. Jesus Saves.” Watson selected the 2-iron and made his brisk, upright swing. As the ball sailed into the gloaming, he quickly barked “Down!” Watson and Edwards could only watch as the dim- pled orb, aided by a draw and urged by the wind, drifted left and scooted through the green, into the deep wiry fescue be- tween two bunkers. Sure enough, he was long and left. “And he’s over, into the deep stuff,” said Jim McKay with a dismissive, downward intonation that reflected the pes- simism of the moment. Aside from the nearby beach, this might be the worst possible leave at the 17th hole. Not only was he likely tangled in the deep rough, but Watson had bro- ken the cardinal rule of US Open play: Thou shalt not short- side thyself. He was only about 15 feet away from the pin and playing to a slick green that sloped away from him. It would all come down to his lie. If it was as poor as could be expected, Watson’s dream of a US Open title would be dashed. And he knew it. As player and caddie headed for the green, Watson flipped the club to Edwards and said grimly, “That’s dead.” Frank Hannigan was in the booth at 17 doing double duty for the USGA and ABC. His reaction to Watson’s shot was somewhat more optimistic. “Remember,” he added, years later, “Watson was what Seve was around the greens. So, I would have thought he had a 50-50 chance of making three.” No mention, however, of making two. If Hannigan liked Watson’s chances of at least making par, sentiment almost everywhere else had shifted to Nicklaus. It made sense. If Watson was going to settle for, at best, a par at 17, and more likely a bogey, he had a world of work to do on 18 and nearly a century of odds against him: No player had ever birdied the final hole to win a US Open. Nicklaus himself says that after watching Watson’s tee ball hide in the green- side rough at 17, “I thought it was over. I thought I had won the tournament.” He and about 20 million other people.
mano a mano, Watson was gaining on Nicklaus. In fact, in every single major that Watson had won prior to the 1982 US Open, Nicklaus was in serious con- tention. In those five majors, the 1975 Open, the ’77 Masters, the ’77 Open, the ’80 Open and the ’81 Masters, Nicklaus’ respective finishes were third, second, second, fourth, and second. But for all those major successes, Watson’s recent US Open failures may have been fresh in the usurper’s mind. As Watson confronted his options on the 17th hole, David Fay, having com- pleted his assignment as starter, was
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killing time Forrest Gump-style. “I’ve got nothing to do,” he recalled, “so I walk over to the scorer’s tent at 18 to sit with Tom Meeks.” Meeks, a USGA staffer, was then compiling and check- ing contestants’ scorecards. In the early 1980s, in order to insure against the dreaded mistake-by-committee, scoring-tent duty was a one-man job. That way, if there was a mistake, P J Boatwright knew whom to go after. Fay, making the most of his busman’s holiday, decided that he’d pass the US Open Sunday sitting quietly behind “Tee Ball” Meeks and watching the fi-
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