NICKLAUS, EXPRESSION DRAINED FROM HIS FACE, STARED AT THE MONITOR. “I CAN’T BELIEVE HE DID IT AGAIN.”
Watson took his stance and waggled. After a swing as smooth as it was abbreviated, the ball, a Golden Ram No 1, came out as high and soft as standard-issue human nerves would allow. It lifted off the face of the club – a 56-degree Wil- son Dyna Power sand wedge salvaged a few years earlier from a cache of castaways in David Graham’s garage. Marr eyed the ball and its every rotation. “It looks good. It looks good,” he said in a rising voice filled with possibility. As the ball started towards the hole, it began to take the break. Just before it col- lided with the pin, Watson crouched slightly and burped out hopefully, “That’s in the hole,” and as it began its freefall into golf lore, an incredulous Marr asked his audience, “Do you believe it?! Do you believe it?!” Watson then surprised anxious photographers and camera- men by bouncing onto the green in an exultant jog. Ironically, this rather un-Watson-like expression of unguarded rapture would become the reserved champion’s signature moment. He turned and shot Edwards the game’s greatest I-told-you- so: “I told you! I told you I was gonna make it!” While the Earth seemingly heaved, Rogers stood stunned, motionless on the edge of the green. Remarkably this was not the first time he had experienced Watson’s last-minute short- game brilliance. In fact, two years earlier, at the Byron Nel- son Classic, Watson had chipped in on the 71st hole to deprive Rogers himself of a victory. “I’ve seen him do a lot of remarkable things, but 17 (at Peb- ble) was shocking,” Rogers said years later in an interview for the USGA. “That birdie put me in absolute shock – I’ll remem- ber it all my life.” So will Nicklaus. The greatest player in the history of the game had been robbed. The man who only seconds ago seemed to have nine fingers on a fifth Open trophy had been pistol-whipped by fate. Worse yet, he learned the news not from the sage Whitaker or from his caddie (eldest son Jack- ie), or even a close friend, but from a tow-headed vagabond USGA staffer named David Fay. Remarkably enough, when Watson’s shot found the bottom of the hole, neither Nicklaus nor Whitaker nor Meeks was watching the monitor in the little tent by the sea. Why should they? The shot was impossible. But Fay was watching, and when Watson’s ball tumbled into the hole, he blurted out, “Holy shit, he holed it!” His words pierced the hushed gathering. Nicklaus spun around in a swivel chair, glared at Fay, and said flatly, “No he didn’t.” Fay responded, “Uh, yeah, he did,” and pointed to the black-and-white monitor. “Look.” The screen was filled with images of Watson’s balletic cel- ebration. Nicklaus, expression drained from his face, stared at the monitor. “I can’t believe it happened again.” Nicklaus recalls that “Jack Whitaker was interviewing me, and he was just finishing the sentence, ‘Jack, it’s been a great privilege to cover you in your time.’ I could have been the only guy to ever win a fifth US Open. Then there goes the yell. As I turned around, there was the monitor, and I see Watson run- ning across the green.” Numerous accounts describe the stunned Nicklaus (who fainted at the first sight of all five of his newborn children) as pale. Fay concurs. “For a moment he was ashen, but, says Fay, “he quickly regrouped, and he was Jack Nicklaus again, the most gracious loser the game has ever seen.” When ABC’s Jim McKay caught the image of a pallid Nick- laus watching an era fade, he said to his audience, “Nicklaus,
punch shots. Pebble called uniquely for short chips from deep, possessive rough to scary-slick greens. “I practised that shot all the time in the practice rounds, knowing that I was hitting the ball really poorly and know- ing that I was going to be faced with that particular shot,” said Watson. Bruce Edwards, just like Nicklaus, Jastrow, Marr and the millions watch- ing at home, knew that even in the best case, even with all Watson’s practice, even with his surprisingly decent lie, Watson would be lucky to stop the ball fewer than 10 feet past the hole. Hoping for the best, Edwards offered a piece of rooting advice, and in doing so laid the foundation for the most memorable caddie-player confab in golf history. “Get it close,” said Edwards. Watson’s famous reply: “Get it close? Hell, I’m gonna make it!” “I said it more out of just trying to get myself ready to play the shot than any- thing else, mentally play the shot,” said Watson. “And when I got up over the ball, I knew what I had to do.” Watson knew that his only chance to hole the shot or even get it close was to hit the flagstick. If not, he, Edwards, Rogers, Nicklaus and the civilised world knew that on a downhill, triple-cut US Open putting surface, this shot – Wat- son’s 2 889th in US Open play – could easily roll into oblivion. McKay and Marr, sensing the impor- tance of the moment, kept their com- mentary simple. McKay: “Now comes, well, possibly the decisive shot of this championship.” Marr: “It’s a shot that he generally plays very well. Of course, the condi- tions now that he plays, they certainly test anyone. So we’ll just have to see. “
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 65
JUNE 2025
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