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JULY/AUGUST 2008
By Dennis McCann On the strength of their résumés alone you would expect that Andy North and Tom Watson would make a pretty good two-man golf team.
Watson, one of the truly great players in the last half century, won eight majors and 31 tournaments overall on the PGA Tour, and if age has nudged him, at 58, onto the Champions Tour it has not cooled his need to win. North, now a globetrotting television golf analyst, won just three tournaments in his PGA career but two of those were U.S. Opens, so he is no stranger to, and certainly not afraid of, the kind of pressure putts that would tickle the nerve endings of lesser partners. Still, this good? As legendary teams go North and Watson are threatening to become the gray-haired golf tour’s version of the 1927 Yankees or the Green Bay Packers of the Titletown ’60s. Or, in deference to North’s Badger-red heart, any of the University of Wisconsin’s winning Rose Bowl teams.
In April, North and Watson teamed up to win the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, the tournament in Savannah, Ga., that only this year had returned to an all-team format. It was their first official victory in the event and it brought each man $250,000 in prize money and no small amount of validation. After having won the 2005, ’06 and ’07 Raphael Division team event at the Liberty, then an unofficial competition, North and Watson had argued long and hard for a return to the tournament’s original team format.
Or, as Watson put it, “We opened up our big fat yaps ... and finally got it done.”
Having gotten their way, what else could they do but go out and win?
“I think we got a lot of satisfaction out of (winning),” said North later. “We really wanted to make it a team event.”
Résumés, however glittery, don’t win golf tournaments, though, or the Hall of Fame would be filled with college phenoms before they ever find the first tee at their inaugural tournament. What North and Watson were able to accomplish at Savannah was the result of good teamwork, yes, but more than that it was the product of a long friendship forged over many decades, a bond sealed on and off the golf course, a connection that prompts each man to refer to the other as “my friend.”
As in, “I’m happy to talk about my friend Andy North,” said Watson, when he returned a call in early June to do just that.
Watson’s memories of knowing North go back to 1969, when the two met – and competed against each other – in the Western Amateur tournament at Rockford CC. The two were still honing games that would later bring them fame and fortune. Watson remembers winning one hole despite hitting a ball out of bounds.
“That’s been 40 years,” he said, sounding surprised at the math.
Maybe the fact that they shared Midwest roots had something to do with the friendship that grew from that meeting, or maybe not. Watson didn’t sound much interested in psychoanalyzing their friendship, at least beyond saying they shared the same thought process, shared a passion for the game of golf and made for good company during practice rounds or on long evenings on the practice range.
“He was always a very pleasant guy with a good sense of humor,” he said of North. “He was always fun to be around.”
And occasionally he was a comfort, as well. At the Senior Open at Whistling Straits GC last year, Watson headed into Sunday’s final round with a three-shot lead, and one of the fans walking every step of the way in his gallery was North.
Did Watson know he was there?
“I did, I did,” he said. “He drove up from Madison and came in the gallery. I disappointed him and myself when I shot 43 on the back nine, three double bogeys (but) it felt wonderful to have him around. Sure, it felt super.”
North was again at his side this spring when Watson hosted a fund-raising tournament to raise money for high-tech medical equipment for Children’s Mercy Hospital in his hometown of Kansas City. Despite his busy travel schedule, which even a nomad like Watson shakes his head over, North and his wife, Sue, spent several days there helping to raise almost a half million dollars for the hospital.
“Andy was the only golfer of repute out there,” Watson said.
“And then there was I.”
North was no stranger to team success before joining up with Watson. In 2000 and ’01 he and partner Jim Colbert won the Liberty Legends of Golf, before the format changed to individual competition.
“I think I’m a pretty good partner,” North said, and his subsequent partnership with Watson was both logical and satisfying.
“We’d been friends a long, long time and we talked about if we ever could do this we’d do it together. It just seemed natural. We do get along great and we make a good team. Tom is such a good driver of the ball (and) he knows I’m going to make some putts.”
Watson said the same, if in slightly different words. “I guess a good team is if you can rely on the other player, rely on his strength,” he said. “Andy drove it very well this year (but) if he hits a bad tee ball, I’m there. And when the chips are down I want Andy North hitting my putt for me.”
On rough-cut public tracks that’s known as ham-and-egging it, and while it’s likely there’s a more glamorous word for that sort of teamwork on the professional circuit, it worked – again – for Watson and North at Savannah. The two got off to a hot start, going 8 under after the first nine holes, and by Saturday night were sitting on a four-stroke lead. Watson figured if they could shoot 8 under par on Sunday’s final round they would probably win, and hoped for another blazing front nine to let their opponents know the conclusion was a given.
They did eventually get to 8 under for the day, and 31 under for the tournament, but not quickly and not without watching their four-shot lead shrink away when Jeff Sluman and Craig Stadler combined for 11 under on Sunday and Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle teamed up for 12 under. Still, they ended with a par and the victory, and an incredible statistic. It has now been four years and 162 holes since Watson and North made bogey.
The two will defend their title, and put their non-bogey streak on the line, at next year’s Liberty Legends. At least, North said, they will if he gets a bit of time to practice before then. While the win – his first since the 1985 U.S. Open – came with a one-year exemption on the Champions Tour, North said he would concentrate on his broadcasting career, except to play in the season-opening MasterCard Championship in Hawaii in 2009.
“I’m very happy doing what I’m doing,” he said of his television work, “(but) it’s fun to get out and play a little.”
Or, maybe a little more than that, maybe in a certain high-level tournament that depends on teamwork.
“We keep teasing (team captain Paul) Azinger that we’d be a good pick for the Ryder Cup,” North said, “(but) I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He was kidding, of course, though for all their prodigious individual talent the American Ryder Cuppers in recent years have exhibited a glaring inability to meld all of their abilities into a winning team. If nothing else, Andy North and Tom Watson should serve as role models. Even as our conversation ended and goodbyes began, Watson added an underscore to the stories he had just related.
“We played a lot of practice rounds getting ready for tournaments, all over the world,” he said. “Our passion is golf. We’ll never lose that passion. And through that passion came a great friendship.”
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