Watson Ends His Nine-Year Wait

Golf

It had been nine years since Tom Watson last won a tournament. It seemed like a lifetime.

“It’s like winning all over again for the first time,” Tom Watson said after he held off a wave of younger challengers and rolled in a clinching putt on the final green Sunday in Dublin, Ohio, to win his second Memorial Tournament by two shots.

“God, it feels good. It feels so good to win again. Nine years. Half of that, I wasn’t playing good and the last half I was. But it feels good to be the last person off the golf course, the guy who knocked the last putt in.”

Watson followed rounds of 70, 68 and 66 with a 70 to finish at 14-under 274 and collect $324,000.

It was the 46-year-old’s first victory in the United States since the 1987 Nabisco Championships. That was also the last time he led a tournament through three rounds. He hadn’t won against a full field in nearly 12 years, since the 1984 Western Open.

“I was thinking back to ‘84 and how good it felt and how I won it,” said Watson, who dedicated the win to his ailing father. “I won that with determination and good play on the last day. I did the same today. I just haven’t been able to do that the last few years.”

He made a one-stroke lead at the start of the day stand up by playing steady golf while those around him found trouble, and David Duval’s late charge fell short.

Watson came in ranked among the top-10 tour players in scoring in the first, second and third rounds, but was a dismal 52nd in the fourth.

He had finished second five times since his last win. Two years ago, he was within striking distance going into the final round of the British Open, Masters and U.S. Open, but ballooned to a 74.

Unlike Saturday, when he holed a sand wedge from the bunker fronting the 17th hole to take a one-stroke lead, Watson never needed a miracle shot on Sunday.

He bogeyed the first hole - missing a 2-footer for par. He missed a 4-footer for par at the 15th. But he made almost every other putt he needed.

Duval, six strokes behind Watson as he stepped to the 14th tee, went birdie, eagle, birdie, par and birdie to the finish.

“It was not much of a duel out there,” Duval conceded. “It was more like him beating up on everybody like he always used to do.”

Senior Tour

John Bland won the third playoff hole with a bogey to beat John Paul Cain and win the rain-soaked Bruno’s Memorial Classic in Birmingham, Ala., on the Senior PGA Tour.

Cain, who holed a long birdie putt at No. 18 in regulation to force the playoff, ended up in the rocks off the green on the third playoff hole and settled for a double-bogey.

With the pressure off, Bland could afford to botch his par putt, and a bogey was enough to claim his third career senior victory and second this season.

After Cain tied Kermit Zarley at 8-under on the tournament’s 54th hole, Bland joined them with a birdie of his own. He survived a bad tee shot on the first playoff hole, and the trio remained tied, marching back to the 18th tee to do it again.

On the second playoff hole, Zarley was eliminated with a double-bogey after hitting the woods on his drive, the mud near a creek on his second shot and the bunker on his third. Cain and Bland both made par.