Tom Watson was back at Royal Birkdale this week, and the old course pulled him straight into its past. On Thursday morning, the five-time Open champion gave an interview there and spoke about the ground where he won his fifth and last Open in 1983.
That is why readers are looking again at Watson now: he remains one of the defining figures in Open history, and he was once more at the venue where he twice finished on top. He won the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie, came through at Royal Birkdale in 1983, and later came close again at the Old Course in 1984 and at Turnberry in 2009, when he lost a playoff at 59. His last Open came in 2015 at the Old Course, but Royal Birkdale keeps drawing him back.
The part of Watson’s career that still matters most is the one built with Alfie Fyles. Watson won all five of his Open championships with Fyles on the bag, and Fyles was a Southport man who had already worked for Gary Player when Player won the 1974 British Open at Royal Lytham. Watson hired Fyles for Carnoustie in 1975, and from there the pair became tied to the biggest moments of his Open run.
That history makes the contrast at Royal Birkdale sharper. Watson returned this week as a celebrated five-time winner, even though Birkdale had once stopped him cold: in 1976, as the defending champion, he brought in Bruce Edwards for the Open there and missed the 54-hole cut. Back then, the championship used both a 36-hole cut and a 54-hole cut, and Watson’s point was simple enough to cut through all the nostalgia. The course, he said, is no different now than it was in 1976.
Watson also came to Birkdale with Dorothy, after the two had toured the Rolex headquarters in Geneva and watched the men’s and women’s finals at Wimbledon on the way over. That kind of itinerary fits a player who still moves through the Open world as both competitor and witness. He is not there to relive a funeral march through memory. He is there because Royal Birkdale still holds one of the clearest answers to why his Open legacy endures.
