Shot Still Keeps Watson in Spotlight

It may not have been a shot heard around the world, but it has linked Tom Watson, Pebble Beach and the U.S. Open forever.

The shot, of course, is Watson’s chip-in on the 17th at the 1982 U.S. Open.

Watson and Jack Nicklaus were tied late in the final round. Nicklaus was in the clubhouse after shooting 284 for the tournament, four under par.

Watson pulled his tee shot on the par-three 17th into the rough, 20 feet from the hole. He faced a downhill shot across a slick green, with a left-to-right break.

A bogey almost certainly would have handed Nicklaus the championship.

Bruce Edwards, Watson’s caddie, told Watson to get it close.

“I said, ‘Get it close? Hell, I’m going to sink it.’ ”

Watson sank it for a birdie, then made birdie on No. 18 to win the tournament by two strokes.

Monday, Watson and Nicklaus played a practice round together and relived Watson’s great moment on No. 17.

“I wanted to play with Jack, because this may be his last Open,” Watson said. “And I played with Arnold [Palmer] when he played the last British Open at St. Andrews. It’s a nice feeling to go out and play with some of the guys you battled against all these years and have a good time.”

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This week’s best local angle? Bobby Clampett, former PGA Tour pro and graduate of Stevenson High in Pebble Beach, gets one more shot on his home course.

It wasn’t easy. Clampett, once a rising star, quit the tour in 1995 when his swing betrayed him. Now a member of the CBS broadcast team, the 40-year-old Clampett failed to advance in a local U.S. Open qualifying tournament in North Carolina but got into last week’s sectionals as a second alternate. He shot 68-67 to qualify.

Clampett won California State Amateur titles in 1978 and ’79 and was an All-America at Brigham Young. He tees off today at 7:50 a.m. in a group that includes Thomas Bjorn and Andy Bean.

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If you have to ask how much. . . . A pair of shorts from the U.S. Open merchandise tent will cost you $70. Other bargains: T-shirt ($24), hat ($25), shot glass ($8) and beer mug ($14).

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If you must know, the wire-to-wire winners in U.S. Open history are Willie Anderson (1903), Alex Smith (1906), Walter Hagen (1914), Chick Evans (1916), James Barnes (1921), Ben Hogan (1953), Tommy Bolt (1958), Tony Jacklin (1970), Nicklaus (1972 and ‘80), Hubert Green (1977) and Payne Stewart (1991).

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For what it’s worth, it cost $100,000 to build Pebble Beach Golf Links in 1919.

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There are six Senior PGA Tour players in the U.S. Open: Nicklaus, Watson, Bean, Tom Kite, Hale Irwin and Dave Eichelberger.

Meanwhile, in what qualifies as news on the corporate schmooze known as the Senior PGA Tour, the name of the final official event of the year has been dramatically changed, from the Ingersoll-Rand Senior Tour Championship to the IR Senior Tour Championship.

What, you may ask, does IR stand for? Ingersoll-Rand, silly. New corporate identity stuff, you know.

Meanwhile, of far greater interest to the players, the purse for the Ford Senior Players Championship has been boosted $200,000 to $2.3 million, making it the largest-ever senior purse.

You can bet that the seniors would play in the Skunk Creek Bakeoff Classic for that kind of money.

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It’s a ritual, the U.S. Open pairing of the U.S. Open defending champion, the British Open champion and the U.S. Amateur champion--except for this year.

The late Stewart, who would have been the defending U.S. Open champion, was replaced in the threesome by Nicklaus. Paul Lawrie, the British Open champion, withdrew Monday because of an injury and was replaced by alternate Don Pooley.

That means that only David Gossett, the U.S. Amateur champion, remains from the original threesome, which now reads Nicklaus, Pooley and Gossett.

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Looking for an intriguing threesome for the first two rounds? Try Colin Montgomerie, Davis Love III and Greg Norman. Or Watson, Kite and Irwin. Phil Mickelson’s partners the first two days are Jean Van de Velde and Jeff Sluman. Masters champion Vijay Singh is paired with Loren Roberts and Steve Stricker.

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In case you’re keeping score, the last European to win the U.S. Open was Tony Jacklin in 1970. Carrying the Europeans’ best hopes 30 years later are Montgomerie, Jesper Parnevik, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Jose Maria Olazabal and Darren Clarke.

Garcia is playing in his first U.S. Open, but many expect the 20-year-old Spaniard to have the greatest impact in the group of Europeans.

“I hope I do well,” Garcia said. “It could be European, American, South African or whatever. I’m not really thinking about that. I’m just here to try to play well and try to win.”