Tom Watson and Snowboarders

A couple weeks ago, Tom Watson did the unthinkable–contend for a major sports championship–and came up a few inches short.

Here’s the short story of the 2009 British Open: The Open Championship consists of 72 holes of golf spread over 4 days. Watson led after 71 holes, even though he was 59 years old, an age at which the competitive days of athletes have long since disappeared.

Even in golf, aging brings difficulties. You’re not as strong. (Is strength important in golf? Try hitting a golf ball out of thick grass and you’ll find out.) You’re more prone to back problems. (Freddie Couples, a mere 50, is one golfer whose career has been plagued by back problems.) Even putting, a task that you’d think anyone can do, becomes more challenging. (There’s a name for those problems–“the yips.”

Yet Watson was in contention throughout the tournament, always leading or being not far from the lead. Yet his fate was sealed when he missed an eight-foot putt on the 18th hole on the final day. That forced him into a four-hole playoff–four holes too many. In the playoff, Stewart Cink (age 36) made 2 birdies and Watson made four bogies, losing by 6.

There’s been a lot of words typed and spoken about how spectacular a Watson win would have been. There were several themes: Was it the greatest sports story of the year? The greatest golf story ever? What was keeping Watson in contention and, as he put it, serene? Where did he find that fountain of youth, and weren’t his exploits going to inspire millions of people, golfers and non-golfers alike?

Here’s the good news for mature adults: Age didn’t do in Tom Watson. He made 278 strokes during regulation, which means that a single birdie here or an averted bogie there, any time during the four days of regulation, would have made the difference. There are plenty of opportunities to say “what if?” What if the putt that missed the whole by 2 inches had gone in? What if the fairway shot that landed in the rough had been just another foot to the right? What if the approach shot had landed in a slightly different location on the green and thus rolled closer to the hole? What if the wind had not blown the ball off course at a critical time?

In other words, if just one thing had gone differently–one thing that statisticians would call a random act, and which the rest of us might call luck or the bounce of the ball–Watson would have had a stroke to spare when he came to that final putt he couldn’t sink.

Tom Watson’s performance shows that aging isn’t necessarily as strong as we think it is. He performed at the highest level for four days, and beat 99.999% of the world’s best golfers. He failed to beat only one, though that was enough to change the story. (By the way, Stewart Cink won the tournament as much as Watson lost it, if not more.)

So what’s the connection to snowboarding? The closest analogue might be if Shaun White was in contention for X-games gold at age 59. That won’t happen. Snowboarding is more physically demanding than golf, and competitive snowboarding places a far greater premium on youth than competitive golf.

Still, the world might be surprised at what an old man can do.