There’s a new face to put on that old adage of “the agony of defeat.”

It belongs to Tom Watson. Only in this case I guess you could call it the agony of defeat, as well as the agony of watching it.

I suppose I should admit here that Tom Watson is one of my all-time favorite golfers. I just have always like the way he comports himself on the course.

Sunday was no exception. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

Watson had managed to turn back the clock this weekend at Turnberry, Scotland, for the Open Championship.

Only us blokes in the USA call it the British Open. To the rest of the globe it is simply the Open Championship.

And Tom Watson is one of its favorite sons. He has won the fabled claret jug five times. Miraculously, a sixth seemed to be in his grasp.

All weekend you waited for Watson to go away after a bracing first round left him just one shot off the lead. But the links-style of golf fits Watson’s game to a tee, you might say. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Instead, he bullishly held the lead. Tiger Woods was dispatched for the weekend after failing to make the cut.

Early on Sunday, it appeared as if Lee Westwood might interfere with Watson’s date with destiny.

But Watson stood on the 18th tee with a one-shot lead.

Tom Watson is 59 years old. He has not played on the regular PGA Tour in years. This is not supposed to happen.

It didn’t. And watching it come undone is about as sad as it gets.

It started off fine. Watson striped his tee shot into the middle of the fairway. Then he flushed his iron into the green. Only he hit it a little too well. It bounced hard on the green, then rolled through it and up against the collar. That’s when you started to get a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.

His putt from the edge ran about 5 feet past the hole. If you know anything about golf – and Watson – you know this is precisely the kind of putt that has dogged him much of his sterling career.

Yesterday was no different. His putt had no shot, coming up short and right.

It dropped him into a tie with Stewart Cink and forced a four-hole playoff.

It was not pretty. Basically, the wheels came off. Watson looked every bit the 59-year-old on those four holes.

It was hard to watch.

I suppose I should feel good for Cink, who managed to capture his first major.

Instead all I felt was horrible for Watson, who came so close to doing something so improbable it would be laughed at if you presented it as a movie script.

You could see the disappointment all over Watson’s face as he hacked it around the course during the playoff. He knew it was over. You knew it, too.

That didn’t make it any easier to watch.

Tom Watson presented golf fans with a very special memory this weekend in Scotland. If only we could re-write the ending.