Pre-Masters geek-out with Tom Watson

I don’t know how your Friday was, but…

(L to R) Todd Bohn, superintendent at Wolf Creek, World Golf Hall of Famer Tom Watson, and Golfdom EIC Seth Jones, pictured last Friday. Photo: Golfdom Staff

I grabbed lunch with Tom Watson, making it kind of a big day.

I’m sitting there at Wolf Creek Golf Club, Olathe, Kan., talking golf with a World Golf Hall of Famer… and I’m thinking to myself, “Masters week starts on Monday… and yet, Tom Watson is taking the time to sit here and talk golf with me!”

How it all came together is a blur, but a special shout-out to Jeff Burey and Todd Bohn for making it all happen in less than 24 hours. And yes, there was a formal interview that you’ll be reading more about in a future issue of Golfdom… so I’m only going to be able to tell you a little about the conversation today…

Uh, Tom ordered the club sandwich…

He thinks the Kansas Jayhawks’ basketball season was ruined the moment Kentucky thumped them early in the season, ruining their confidence for the rest of the year…

We talked about the champions locker room at Augusta National, where he shared a locker with 1948 Masters champion Claude Harmon until Mr. Harmon passed in 1989.

And who does he like at Augusta this year? Rory McIlroy, naturally… and for the foreseeable future, Watson said. Why? Fundamentals.

“When the pressure rises, and you’re playing at the highest level, the guy who can fall back on his fundamentals will survive,” Watson said. “The guys with bad fundamentals will crumble.”

(We talked about who has bad fundamentals… but I’d like to one day have lunch with Watson again, so…)

Man, I want to tell you more about the whole experience, but I’m a few hours from ‘wheels-up’ to Augusta…

But it was cool, really cool, sitting down with Watson for an hour and just shooting the breeze. I only told a handful of people about the lunch beforehand, in case the whole thing fell through last-minute. Golfdom columnist Matt Neff was one of those people.

“So what was it like?” he asked me. I told him, “Imagine grabbing lunch and just chit-chatting with a World Golf Hall of Famer, a few days before the Masters… that’s what it was.”

Neff shouted back at me, “Yeah, because that is such a normal thing for me to imagine!”

He may have called me a few choice names then, but I don’t remember.

But, like I told Neff, I’ll tell you… it was a golf geek-out moment. I’ve said hi to Watson before… but I’ve never had his undivided attention before… never sat down with the guy and talked about Billy Casper, Bubba Watson, David Duval…

And to think this all went down right before the Masters? I’m having a golf geek-out moment mere days before golf’s ultimate geek-out week?

Oh, man… my 2015 golf season is off to a good start!

I’ll pack it in now. But I’m hopeful to see some of you in Augusta this week. Please do say hello, or even set something up with me beforehand. I’ve got about a dozen meetings already in the works, and I’d like to add a dozen more. So email me or tweet at me so we can say hello in Augusta, OK?

And then, in person, over beers, I’ll tell you more of my Tom Watson story…