The year of 1978 was a case of what might have been for Tom Watson as he
finished runner-up in both the Masters and the PGA Championship. In the Masters
he went down by just one stroke to Gary Player with the South African shooting
an inspired last round 64 whilst in the PGA he was beaten by John Mahaffey in a
play-off after carding a disappointing final round 73. There was more play-off agony
the following year as Watson went down to Fuzzy Zoeller at the Masters after the
pair had tied at eight under par. In 1980 Watson captured his third Open Championship
with victory at Muirfield. He opened the tournament with a 68 & 70 and then fired a
superb third round 64 to ease into a four stroke lead ahead of Lee Trevino. Nobody
could do better than Tom's final round of 69 and he claimed his third claret jug in
six years. Besides that Open triumph Watson was also victorious on no less than
six occasions on the US tour,winning $530,808 and topping the US money lists for
the fourth consecutive year in the process. Watson finally landed his second Green Jacket
in 1980 after the near misses of the previous two years with a two stroke success from
Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller. His rounds of 71-68-70-71 left him at eight under par
and gave him his sixth major championship. The 1981 Ryder Cup saw Tom form a
formidable partnership with Jack Nicklaus. The pair were victorious in all three of their
games as the Americans cruised to a 18 1/2-9 1/2 win although Watson would have
been disappointed at his 4 & 3 last day singles defeat to Howard Clark. (David Scranage)