British Open: Ranking the 25 most dominant performances of all time
By Bill Felber
3. Tom Watson, 1977, -3.38
Among celebrated British Open championships, the 1977 ‘duel in the sun’ between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus always ranks near the top of the list. For four days the game’s two greatest players separated themselves from the field like twin comets racing across the night sky.
When each completed 54 holes in 203, the nearest challenger, Ben Crenshaw, trailed by three, and no other player was within seven. From the start of the final round there was never a scintilla of doubt that one of the two would win…but which one?
Nicklaus built an early three stroke lead in that final round, only to see Watson rally and catch him with a 60-foot putt at 15. A birdie at the par-5 17th put Watson in front for the first time, forcing Nicklaus to press a drive on 18 that landed up against a gorse bush. To make matters more dire for Nicklaus, Watson dropped his 7-iron approach within two feet for a near-certain clinching birdie.
Up to the challenge, Nicklaus managed to maneuver his 8-iron approach close to the green, then dramatically holed out from 35 feet for his own birdie. That forced Watson to make his putt, and he did. His final round 65 led to a record four-round total of 268 that bettered the previous record by an astonishing eight strokes.
Watson and Nicklaus left the 18th green arm-in-arm, while the rest of the field gazed in awe. Hubert Green, ten behind Nicklaus in third, managed the only other sub-par score. “I won the tournament I played. They were playing in something else,” Green told reporters.