They share, with eight wins each, the sixth place in the ranking of major winners. They are Americans Betsy Rawls and Tom Watson.
Of all the players who battled against Jack Nicklaus for supremacy in world golf, Thomas Sturges Watson, known worldwide as Tom Watson, was one of the most serious rivals. Born in 1949 in Kansas City, Watson boasts a spectacular sporting record, which includes 39 victories on the PGA Tour, including two Masters, two U.S. Opens and five British Opens.
Beginning in 1977, Watson won the PGA Tour Player of the Year title six times and was the PGA Tour’s number one earner on five occasions. However, it was his victories in his duels against Nicklaus, 10 years his senior, that established him as one of the greatest golfers of all time.
The first of those resounding triumphs came in 1977 at the Augusta Masters when Watson countered Nicklaus’ lead in the final round with four birdies in six holes to win by two strokes. Four months later, at the British Open at Turnberry the two engaged in one of the most intense and sustained battles of the highest caliber in the history of the majors. Tied after 36 holes, they played the last two rounds together. Nicklaus recorded 65 and 66 strokes, while Watson carded rounds of 65 to take the win.
Then, in 1982, Nicklaus, struggling to win his fifth U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, lost the lead again to the indomitable Watson. Tom countered again in the final stretch of the tournament and holed an acclaimed birdie on the 17th hole with a spectacular pitch from thick rough, in one of the best shots ever seen in the final round of a major. He birdied the 18th again and won the tournament by two strokes.
Watson, from his childhood, was already fond of all kinds of sports and was also very competitive. Because of his freckled good-boy face and his ‘killer’ instinct on the course, in his early golfing days he was nicknamed ‘Huckleberry Dillinger’, after the mischievous Huckleberry Finn and the robber John Dillinger. After a good but unspectacular junior year, Watson attended Stanford University, where he graduated with a degree in Psychology. At that time he occasionally demonstrated his good golfing skills, although he did not show such dazzling brilliance as he would exhibit shortly thereafter.
But once Watson joined the North American Tour, the PGA Tour, he made clear his willingness to stand out from the rest. “Tom would never tolerate weakness,” Lanny Wadkins said. “He would go to the driving range and hit balls until things went his way.”
However, Watson struggled to win early in his career. In the 1974 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, he led the tournament by one stroke heading into the final round, but finished fifth after posting a round of 79. was leading after 36 holes the following year at Medinah, but again finished the tournament poorly. Watson would later comment, “By losing, I learned how to win.” And he also learned from Byron Nelson, who later became his teacher and mentor.
At the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie, Watson birdied the final hole of the tournament from seven yards to force a playoff with Jack Newton, whom he defeated by one stroke in the 18-hole playoff. This victory was to start a succession of success in the oldest of the majors, where it was best reflected in the tireless character of a player like Watson. Tom won the famous British Open claret jug four more times: in 1977, 1980, 1982 and 1983. “Tom takes deep satisfaction in the prospect of a great challenge,” said his friend and former USGA president Frank Tatum, who noted Watson’s “unusual intelligence.”
Tom was both a great hitter and a skilled short game player, being feared for his putter handling. On the green, it was rare to see him miss a birdie opportunity.
After his glory years ended with his last winnings lead in 1984, Watson’s putter magic declined and he has won only three times since then.
His last PGA Tour victory came at the age of 49, in 1998, at the MasterCard Colonial. A year later he began playing on the Champions Tour, his country’s senior circuit.
Watson was named Player of the Year in 2003. But it wasn’t all joy that same year, as his lifelong caddie, Bruce Edwards, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Waton then founded an organization to fight the disease, to which he donated $1 million. During 2003 alone, Tom helped bring donations to that ailment and other charitable causes to $3 million.
Watson has won 14 tournaments on the Champions Tour, including six majors, and ranked first on the 2003 money list and fifth in 2005. He also designs golf courses, with most of his creations in the United States, although he has also designed two in Europe.
One of Watson’s career milestones came a couple of months before his 60th birthday, at the 2009 British Open, a tournament he led for most of the four rounds and lost in a four-hole playoff to compatriot Stewart Cink.
In 1988, Watson was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. At 69 years of age, this golf legend is still in top form, so much so that he finished tenth in a Champions Tour tournament he played last February, with an overall score of 9 under par.
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BETSY RAWLS
There is no more respected woman in golf than Elizabeth Earle “Betsy” Rawls (1928, Spartanburg, South Carolina). Her 55 career victories place her behind only Kathy Whitworth, Mickey Wright and Patty Berg, and she shares with Wright the record for most U.S. Women’s Opens won, with four. Rawls was admired for her excellence at all levels of the game.
The USGA could not have honored a more deserving individual than Rawls when it presented her in 1996 with the Bob Jones Award for outstanding service to golf. “Betsy has always been committed to the job and dedicated to the sport,” Wright said. “I can only think of two women who have accomplished so much, not only as players, but also for their lifetime contributions, and they are Betsy and Patty Berg.”
Rawls didn’t swing a golf club until she was 17. Four years later, she won the 1949 Texas Amateur, and in 1950 she finished second to Babe Zaharias in the U.S. Women’s Open. After graduating from the University of Texas, she turned professional golfer in 1951 and won her first U.S. Women’s Open.
She led the LPGA Tour in earnings in 1952, won her second U.S. Women’s Open in 1953 and her third in 1957. Her most successful year was 1959, when she won ten times, including the LPGA Championship and the Western Open (one of the majors at the time), as well as the Vare Trophy (lowest stroke average per round for the entire season). Her biggest thrill was winning the LPGA championship in 1969 because she had reached a point where she was not sure she could win again.
“I thought I was going to be a winner, and as I went along, winning got easier and easier,” Rawls said. “It was something I expected to do. I always played well under pressure because it didn’t bother me, and that’s why I won so many tournaments. I can’t take great credit for it, but I could perform in tense situations.”
One of Rawls’ toughest rivals in the majors was Patty Berg, who finished second in three of the two improvements won by Betsy, although in two they were separated by six strokes and in the other by only one.
When Rawls joined the LPGA Tour, there were about 20 players and 20 tournaments. She worked under Zaharias as LPGA secretary and headed the tournament committee that prepared the fields, wrote rules, organized the pairings, kept statistics and did the bookkeeping. The rest of the year was spent promoting Wilson Sporting Goods with Patty Berg. The two would do more than 120 clinics a year, traveling by car around the country.
When she retired from top competition in 1975 at age 48, Rawls became LPGA Tour tournament director and later took over as executive director of the McDonald’s LPGA Championship. She also served on the USGA rules committee. In 1980, she became the first woman to direct the men’s U.S. Open.
“Anyone who can make a living in golf is lucky,” Rawls said. “And on top of that receiving all the benefits that were bestowed upon me in the process? well, it makes me feel lucky. It’s more than I could ever deserve.”
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