A COUPLE OF OLD TOMS

Borrowed from RICH LERNER - The Golf Channell -
July, 18,3009 - after third round at TURNBERRY


A Couple of Old Toms



Tom Watson credits his performance this week in large part to unseen spiritual forces. Oxford defines spirit as a person’s mind or soul as distinct from their body, a person’s mood. A ghost.

Like the other Old Tom, Old Tom Morris.

In C.B. McDonald’s prized book, “Scotland’s Gift,” he writes of Old Tom Morris in prose that could just as easily apply to this Old Tom, “that he was always equable in temper, always courteous, much beloved by everyone.’

Old Tom once said, and this too could apply to today’s Old Tom, who like many his age in living a full life has wrestled with and overcome some personal difficulties:

"Had it not been for golf I’m not sure that at this day I’d be living; I’ve had my troubles and my trials as if the very soul had gone out of me.

But there’s nothing like a good golf match to clear your brain of that kind of thing and with the help of God and golf I’ve gotten through somehow or other."

Watson loves these links as deeply as Morris surely did.

What would you do with the love of a lifetime, if you knew that your time was limited?

You’d savor every moment. Accept what is, and not be quick to judge. Be grateful for the good health. Float with the wind. You might, to use Watson’s phrase, hold hands with the old gal and go for a walk.

You might let go, try not to explain the unexplainable, how a nearly 60-year-old man might very well win the Open Championship.

You might just let the spirit carry you.