Remembering the Duel in the Sun

A little heavy on the golf content, I know, but bear with me…the Open returns to Turnberry’s Alisa course in a handful of days, and it was home to one of the greatest showdowns in golf history, one which makes Tiger vs. Rocco seem pithy and insignificant.

In 1977, Jack Nicklaus was at the height of his powers, possessing the mature game of a seasoned veteran who was as dangerous a player on the links as possible.  In 1977, Tom Watson was the reigning Player of the Year, had already beaten Nicklaus at Augusta, and who’s Open win in 1975 was just the tip of the iceberg of what may have been the career of the greatest modern links golfer.

In 1977, Nicklaus and Watson had lapped the field by the end of the 2nd round and went toe to toe for two straight days in the abnormally beautiful weather that was dubbed the Duel in the Sun.

Watson previaled again, but not without truckloads of drama and suspense.  You may look at his weekend pair of 65’s and think he romped, but Nicklaus was right there with him the entire way, even leading by three strokes on Sunday.  Unfortunately, highlight packages are hard to find online, but if you can drudge up a copy, you won’t regret it.

Turnberry is kind of like a distant cousin to the other courses in the Open rota.  Where most links courses, such as Carnoustie and St. Andrews go from being intricately difficult in good weather to brutal in poor weather, Turnberry represents the resort that operates it.  The Opens at Turnberry have all had strangely calm weather, for the most part, and even when the weather is terrible, it’s still one of the easier tracks in Scotland.

When the weather is fine, however, it’s a kilt-wearing version of your everyday, garden variety TPC Birdiebinge.  And in 1977, the weather was shockingly beuatiful.

So it stands to reason that, when the scoring conditions are ideal, the two best players in the game would seperate themselves from the field, right?  Right.  And that’s exactly what happened.

Nicklaus and Watson staged one of those battles that you’ll always remember as being a true represntative of professional competition.  After 16 holes on Sunday, the two were tied.  Nicklaus hits a fine approach to the green while Watson was well off and facing a menacingly long and difficult chip or putt, depending how he wanted to play it.

What seperates links golf from American golf is the creativity that goes into each shot.  Typically on links courses, you want to keep the ball on the ground and use the swells to get the ball close, but Watson and Nicklaus were both high-ball hitters, a type of golfer you’d think would struggle in Scotland.

Back to Watson at 17…Watson was faced with one of these decisions.  While a chip would’ve been prudent considering spin could be controlled a lot easier, Watson chose to putt, and drained it.  60 feet or so of big breaks and sun-baked greens later, the pressure was squarely on the Golden Bear’s back…and led to a miss.

Now up a stroke, Watson finds the fairway with his drive at 18 while Nicklaus gets in the rough and knocks it on the green from about 50 feet away.  The next shot will go down as one of the greatest clutch approaches in history, a 2-iron from the fairway through a dust storm to about 3-feet.  I don’t know if you’ve ever hit a true, muscleback 2-iron, but it’s easily one of the hardest clubs to hit well with only the 1-iron of the same design being harder.  And here, Watson delivered under pressure, a nutted shot of pure ‘merican golfy goodness.

Yet Nicklaus wasn’t about to go away.  Faced with a 50 footer that rivaled Watson’s at 17 in terms of difficulty, the Golden Bear drained his own bomb, forcing Watson to have to make his 3-footer to win.  Now, a 3-footer for a tour player is nothing under normal circumstances, but just think of what Watson was thinking about as he lined it up.

The greens were precociously fast thanks to four days of beating sun, he was mentally drained after going toe to toe with history’s greatest golfer, he just saw said greatest golfer drain a 50 footer, and after hitting two miracle shots (the putt from off the green at 17 and the 2-iron drilled into 18), how much did he have left?  Oh, and the Open was on the line too.  No pressure or anything.

Anyways…Watson drills it, beats Nicklaus and wraps up what was arguably the greatest golf tournament in the game’s history.

Nicklaus would go on to win four more majors including the Open the following year at St. Andrews.  While Nicklaus is rightly remembered in the best light, history hasn’t been so kind to the soft-spoken Watson.  For a player of his stature, with two Green Jackets, a US Open (also over Nicklaus with a chip in on 17 at Pebble Beach), and FIVE Claret Jugs, you’d think he’d be considered an all-timer.

Unfortunately for Watson, his greatest legacy was looking Nicklaus in the eye and not backing down.  The fact that two of his majors came at the expense of Nicklaus in two of the most pressure packed tourmanets on golf’s grandest stages ties the two together, and almost unfairly so.  Watson wasn’t the most talented player on tour, but he was one of the most creative.  He could get up and down from anywhere, and pull shots out of his ass under pressure like nobody’s business.

But that aside, Tom Watson was one of the true greats, and his win at the 1977 Open might be the crowning achievement on one phenomenal career.