Watson Wows ‘Em Again

First-Round 65 Gives Him A 3-Shot Lead

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Toledo, Ohio – Ever since turning 50, Tom Watson has maintained two goals: win a Senior PGA Championship and U.S. Senior Open.

With the 2001 PGA Championship under his belt, Watson nearly fulfilled those desires when he took Don Pooley to a five-hole playoff before succumbing in last year’s Senior Open.

On Thursday at the 6,983-yard par-71 Inverness Club, Watson took a step toward avenging

	In a bid for his first Senior Open title, Tom Watson missed just two fairways in regulation. (Steve Gibbons/USGA)

that disappointment by storming to a 5-under 66 first-round lead. Bruce Lietzke, playing in his second Senior Open, was three strokes behind at 2-under 69.

The next closest challengers were Mike McCullough and J.C. Snead at 1-under 70, while three players stood even par.

Inclement weather forced play to be suspended at 6:16 p.m. with thirty six players still on the course. Play was officially called at 7:28 p.m. Those needing to complete the first round will pick up at 7:45 a.m. Friday, while round two will start as scheduled at 7:30 a.m.

Leading up to the championship’s start, talk surrounded around the toughness of the course. Players were shaking their collective heads at the diminutive Donald Ross greens during practice rounds. Fast, tricky, undulating, severe and unforgiving were used to describe them.

It was determined by the majority that even par would probably be enough to win this week.

Then came Watson, dispelling such a notion.

It’s the first time in the same year that the first-round leader at the Senior Open also led after the first round at the U.S. Open.

"I don’t know what got into me," said Watson, vying to become the eighth past U.S. Open winner to add the Senior Open title to his illustrious resume. "Today was one of those days that everything worked well with the putter."

Reminiscent of his first round in the U.S. Open at Olympia Fields in which he fired a 5-under 65 before finishing 28th, Watson’s putter again came to his rescue. Three of his seven birdie putts went 25 feet or longer.

"My day was punctuated by three long putts," he said. "Bang, bang, bang. Hat trick at the Senior Open. It turned a 71 into a 66 with those three long putts."

Perhaps the most impressive one came on the 511-yard par-5 13^th. Watson hit driver into the right rough, then relied on a 6-iron to carry up to the green. It didn’t quite work out, leaving last year’s runner-up looking at a 25-footer just short of the green.

"I used a bladed pitching wedge," said Watson. "Couldn’t really say it was a chip because it never got airborne."

For the most part, Watson used reads fellow competitor Fuzzy Zoeller provided. For example, after the Inverness grounds crew blew debris off the fifth hole, Zoeller watched as his approach stopped 30 feet short of the flagstick that was tucked back left. Zoeller knocked the putt to 4 feet, but it skipped twice and didn’t have nearly enough left-to-right break.

Up walked Watson, who raised both arms in the air as his 35-footer broke 4 feet left and landed in the hole for birdie. "It was one of those field goals you don’t expect to make," said Watson, taking 24 putts. "But you are very observant. There were two or three that Fuzzy and Jose Maria [Canizares] had that gave me a good read."

Said Zoeller, who struggled with his 3-wood and finished even-par 71, "Tom just proved that if you play well and make putts, you’re going to do well."

The 51-year-old Lietzke, who finished tied for 21^st at Caves Valley a year ago, decided early on that the driver – his best club – had to stay in the bag. In all, he hit it twice and said he shouldn’t have used it one time.

"I don’t particularly like my chances to win this [championship] when my best club is left in the bag," he said.

The most defining point in his round actually occurred on his opening hole, in which he bogeyed. It sounds strange, but it was true. The green on No. 1 has an unforgiving slope if the ball is below the hole, which Leitzke was.

Looking at a 12-foot putt for bogey, Lietzke barely tapped the sphere and saw it take off.

"The ball would have rolled 10 to 12 feet past the hole if it missed," he said, calling it his best hole of the round despite notching six birdies. "I could have double, triple bogeyed on that hole and my ship could have been headed to the bottom of the sea real quick."

Entering this week, defending champion Don Pooley had only played three competitive rounds thanks to off-season shoulder surgery to repair his labrum. On Tuesday, after missing a practice round because of a sore lower back, he sounded defeated.

But after a 1-over 71 round that featured 17 pars, he seemed borderline ecstatic.

"It was the best I’ve played all year," said Pooley, trying to become the first repeat champion since Gary Player in 1988.

Jack Nicklaus, winner of the 1991 and 1993 Senior Open, had a difficult day, shooting 6-over 77. He bogeyed five of his last nine holes, mainly by missing short putts. In all, he totaled five of a possible 15 fairways. His frustration boiled over at the 8^th tee box when his drive went into the left rough. Nicklaus grabbed his tee and heaved it toward the ropes.

"I have nothing to talk about with my round today," he said. "I was lousy. If I didn't make a couple of long putts, I would have vaulted into the 90s."

Ken Klavon is the USGA Web Editor. E-mail him at kklavon@usga.org with questions and comments.