Newsday: Watson falters, loses British Open playoff to Cink

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- It could have been the sports story of many a year, the golf story of the century. Tom Watson, who will turn 60 in September, was going to win the British Open. He had a putter in his hand and the tournament in his grasp.

It was wonderful, fantastic. And then like that, it was gone.

Then like that, late Sunday afternoon, Stewart Cink -- mentioned so often as a probable major tournament winner -- was raising his arms in triumph and reaching for the historic silver claret jug on which his name, as is tradition, already had been engraved.

Watson was a shot ahead after 71 holes of the 138th Open, but he bogeyed the 72nd and came apart in a brutally sad four-hole playoff in which he looked like the 59-year-old man he is, getting beaten by six shots.

Cink, playing five groups ahead of Watson, birdied the 18th hole for a 1-under-par 69 and a total of 2-under 278. It didn't seem to mean much until Watson's 8-iron approach to 18 was long. Using the putter, he took three from just off the green, shot 72 and also finished with 278.

Cink went par-par-birdie-birdie in the playoff, Watson bogey-par-double bogey-bogey.

Tied for third at 1-under 279 were two Englishmen -- Lee Westwood, who held the lead before bogeying 15, 16 and 18, and Chris Wood.

"It would have been a hell of a story," said Watson, who had at least part of the lead in all four rounds at Turnberry, where 32 years earlier he won the second of his five Open titles.

Indeed. Not that the 36-year-old Cink didn't like the story that came to be. He grew up watching Watson's World Golf Hall of Fame career, and to face him in a playoff for a major, Cink said, in a bit of awkward prose, "would be beyond even my mind's imagination capabilities."

The presumption was that holding up the last day was beyond Watson's capabilities. He had hip surgery in October. He plays the Champions Tour, where the courses are not as severe. He had not won a major since the 1983 British Open.

But with a hole to play, Watson was a shot ahead and seemed destined to become by 11 years the oldest man ever to win a major. Unfortunately, he hit an 8-iron when he said he should have used a 9, and the ball rolled off the back edge of the 18th green, Watson made a bad putt, then missed an 8-footer for the par and the win.

"Yes," Watson said, "it's a great disappointment. It tears at your gut, as it always has torn at my gut. It's not easy to take. The playoff was just one bad shot after another and Stewart did what he had to do."

Which was make one good shot after another.

Cink had won other tournaments. He had been on Ryder Cup teams. He just didn't have that finishing touch, a major. He does now.

"How much I needed it, I don't know," Cink said. "I'm not sure I ever thought about whether I was good enough to win a major or not. I knew I'd been close a few times, but I never heard my name tossed in there with the group of best ones not to win.

"So maybe I was starting to believe that, that I wasn't one of the best ones to never win a major."

Watson opened his post-round interview with the admonition, "This ain't a funeral, you know."

It was a golf tournament that gave Watson and others a huge jolt and then, excluding Cink, a massive letdown.

"It was almost," Watson said. "Almost. The dream almost came true."

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CBSSports.com: Easygoing Cink gives fans fairy tale -- just not one they want

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- It wasn't as if he shot Santa Claus. All Stewart Cink did was shoot under par. That he beat Tom Watson, whose age and reputation made him everybody's favorite, couldn't be held against Cink.

Finally Cink had won a major, the oldest one on the planet, the British Open.

Did it by sinking a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation Sunday, and then after the 59-year-old Watson bogeyed the same hole, Cink crushed him in their four-hole playoff.

"It's a surreal experience for me," said Cink. "Not only did I play one of my favorite courses, but playing against Tom Watson. I grew up watching Tom Watson play on TV and hoping I could follow in his footsteps at the Open Championship.

"I feel so happy just to be part of all this."

As he should. As Watson felt so devastated.

After the 36-year-old Cink and Watson tied with 72-hole scores of 2-under 278, Watson, coming unglued, went 4 over par in the four extra holes -- the fifth, sixth, 17th and 18th -- while Cink went 2 under.

A onetime star at Georgia Tech, Cink twice finished third in majors, including the 2001 U.S. Open, when -- despite a reputation for being a great putter -- he missed a short one on the final green that kept him from a playoff. Cink is maybe the best unknown star on the PGA Tour.

He understood the compassion for Watson, a five-time Open winner who by 11 years could have become the oldest champion in a major.

Stewart was the unintended villain, the guy who ruined arguably the best golf story ever.

"Playing against Tom, it was with mixed feelings, because I watched him with such admiration all week," Cink said.

The admiration was universal. Virtually everyone in the boisterous gallery wanted Watson to make history.

"It's not the first time I've been under the radar," said Cink. "I've played a lot of times with Tiger [Woods] and hearing the Tiger roars, and with Mickelson. I'm usually the guy the crowd appreciates, but they're not behind me 100 percent. Maybe this will change it."

Or maybe not. For some, this 138th British Open at Turnberry on the Firth of Clyde will always be the one Watson lost rather than the one Stewart Cink one. The one that might have been.

Cink came in with a 1-under-par 69 Sunday, holing that 15-footer on 18, although at the time, with Watson several holes behind and battling Englishman Lee Westwood, the putt didn't seem that big. As we learned, it would become huge.

An easy-going individual -- and in this world of shouting and waving, that may have kept him in the figurative shadows -- Cink was mentioned by the golfing cognoscenti as one of the game's top players.

He had won other tournaments. He had been on Ryder Cup teams. He just didn't have that finishing touch, a major. He does now.

"How much I needed it, I don't know," Cink allowed. "I'm not sure I ever thought about whether I was good enough to win a major or not. I knew I'd been close a few times, but I never heard my name tossed in there with the group of best ones not to win.

"So maybe I was starting to believe that, that I wasn't one of the best ones to never win a major."

He can stop believing. The way he went through that playoff late on a windy afternoon, going par-par-birdie-birdie, was the stuff of excellence. He talked about Tiger, but Woods rarely has put on so emphatic a performance.

Someone wondered if Cink, who was embraced by his wife and family just off the 18th green, felt he had come in at the end of a syrupy Hollywood film and stolen the girl just before the final scene.

"Well, just as long as I get the girl," said Cink, "I'm OK with that. No, I don't feel that way. I feel like whether Tom was 59 or 29, he was one in the field. I had to play against everybody in the field and, of course, come out on top.

"I don't think anything can be taken away. Somebody may disagree with that, but it's going to be hard to convince me."

Understandably. Cink did what he was supposed to do, win the tournament, although admittedly it was not what many people wanted him to do. The Tom Watson Tale was one that never may come along again.

"I never would have dreamed that I would go up against Tom Watson head-to-head in a playoff for a major championship," Cink said. "That would be beyond even my mind's imagination capabilities."

That's an awkward way of saying that even if the ending wasn't all fuzzy and magical for the world of golf, the story was as good as it gets for Stewart Cink.

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http://www.cbssports.com/golf/story/11969462
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