Feeling Watson's Pain

__I learned how to win by losing and not liking it. Tom Watson

__

We don't know about you, but as much as we admired Brad Bryant for his 68 yesterday, we were rooting for Golf Digest Playing Editor Tom Watson to finally get his U.S. Senior Open. The final-nine 43 was painful to watch and, if you happened to hear or read a transcript of the press conference with Tom afterward, it was all the more painful for his straightforward answers to the questions. Craig Smith of the USGA introduces him as "a gracious Tom Watson" and he couldn't have been more so.

It's just that listening to his answers reminded us once more that there are no explanations, really, when the game goes haywire, and Watson's answers proved it.

At fifteen, I'm still in it. I thought that I could make some good swings coming in. I made a pretty good swing, I thought, at the 15th tee, but the wind got it, and maybe it was the wrong club; 3-wood is probably the wrong club. It was probably a 2 Idea [hybrid] off the tee today there. I didn't judge that shot very well. So as I said, my judgment this week was off quite a bit, and that's what links golf does to you....

Or what golf does to you. Here's hoping that in our struggles to explain an inexplicable finish we handle the "what happened?" questions as well as Watson did yesterday. And that we salute our victorious opponent as well as he did winner Bryant in the final words of that press conference:

He's got some game. He's got more game than I do.

--Bob Carney