With eight major championships on his résumé, and five more from his days playing on the Champions Tour, Watson has a career highlight reel that rivals just about any golfer’s. The miraculous chip-in from off the 17th green at Pebble Beach during the 1982 U.S. Open is one such moment that he will gladly talk about—but only when someone else brings it up. There’s also the approach shot into the 72nd hole of the 1977 Open Championship at Turnberry, where he ultimately raised his second Claret Jug, narrowly defeating Jack Nicklaus in the process. Watson might regale you with a story about that final hole, too, but only if you ask.

Even when he visited Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island in September as the guest of honor at this year’s Kingdom Cup (see “Crowning the Kingdom Cup,” page 112), Watson never brought up his two tour wins there. Instead, he talked passionately about the 1964 Kansas City Men’s Match Play Championship, a tournament that he has long considered to be the most important victory in his golfing career.

Beating all of the city’s best players was a thrill for Watson—who was only 14 years old at the time—but the championship’s significance to him now has little to do with the victory itself. His win drew the attention of the organizers of the TWA Clipped Wings International golf exhibition, which was held to raise money for multiple sclerosis research—and featured then seven-time major champion Arnold Palmer. “They said it’d be fun to have this precocious kid play golf with Arnold Palmer,” Watson remembers. “So I had a chance to play with my hero.”

That “life-affirming moment” made clear what Watson would be. “I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he reflects. “My dreams of becoming an Arnie or Jack, a Bobby or Billy, a Gene or Stan, became focused with that victory. My life’s ambition was set: I was going to be a professional golfer.”

Palmer may have been Watson’s golfing hero, but it’s clear that Watson worshipped his father just as much. Ray Watson introduced his son to golf in 1955, sliding a cut-down club in his hands and teaching him the proper grip and fundamentals of the swing. Watson’s a bit hazy on the details of that first golf club, but he’s certain that “it was hickory-shafted, and it didn’t have a number on it.”

From rounds played alongside his father to mornings spent caddying for him and his friends—all of whom were single-digit handicaps—Watson observed how better players maneuvered around the golf course and interacted with each other. “There’s a rapport that you establish on the golf course,” he says. “You get a chance to really know somebody in a four- or five-hour round. You get to see how they play the game: how they handle anger, how they handle bad shots, the type of humor that they have. I’d see how my dad and his friends needled each other.

“They also taught me the history of the game,” Watson continues. “They would talk about the older players—the greats like Bobby Jones and Snead and Nelson and Hogan. Those were the players that they grew up with, and I grabbed onto that.”

Watson also embraced his father’s approach to the game.
“I was fortunate and blessed to have a father who was a great player,” he says. “He taught me the etiquette of the game and how to play, so as far as golf is concerned, he was the premier mentor in my life.”

The senior Watson supported his son’s decision to pursue a career on the PGA Tour, even when the odds of success weren’t certain. “I was an introverted kid who loved the game [of golf] and had a little bit of talent,” Watson recalls. “I showed a little bit in my amateur career, but nothing big on the national amateur circuit.”

Even so, he aspired to play at the highest professional level, and on the way home from a hunting trip during Watson’s senior year of college, he told his father as much. “Without missing a beat,” Watson recalls, “my dad said, ‘Son, that’s the right decision, because if you didn’t make that decision, you’d always wonder if you could’ve made it.’ ”

More than five decades and 70 professional victories later, it’s clear that Watson made the right call. These days, the Stanford graduate still plays regularly, but his rounds are only of the social kind. “I just play for pleasure,” he says, “and I play from the white tees.”

The five-time Open champion makes a point to connect those two statements, and he encourages amateurs of all ages and ability levels to keep an open mind as to where they tee it up on the course. “Play with joy,” he says. “Golf is a game that’s meant to be fun, so make sure you play from the tees that are commensurate with how far you can hit it. Sure, you want to go out there and test your skills on the golf course, but make sure you play from the tees that are going to allow you to have fun.”

Teeing it forward may be Watson’s unofficial initiative within the game, but as he finishes up the back nine of a lifelong career in golf, he’s committed to a new venture: Watson Links. The nonprofit organization ensures that aspiring junior golfers have an opportunity to get out on the course, even if they don’t have a family member who can provide that introduction.

Watson Links matches children with adult mentors for weekly nine-hole rounds of golf, and then subsidizes those rounds so the golf is free for both the child and the mentor. The organization launched its first pilot program in Kansas City in 2021, and by 2023, it had matched 145 junior players with 40 mentors, accounting for 634 rounds played. Through partnerships with First Tee chapters, Watson Links is expanding; in 2024, it continued its operations in Kansas City and Sacramento, and debuted in Indianapolis, Omaha, and Wichita.

“I have three foundations,” Watson says, “and for all three, the very first line of the mission statement says, ‘We are here to create lifetime golfers.’ ”

He is optimistic that Watson Links will do just that—help to build a diverse new generation of avid players. “It’s what golf needs right now,” he says. “It needs opportunities for kids at the First Tee level to get to learn the game from mentors, just like how my father took me onto the golf course and taught me the love of the game.”

Crowning the Kingdom Cup

At Kingdom’s third annual tournament on Hilton Head Island, one of golf’s greatest champions contributed quality shots and plenty of banter to go along with them.

During the second competitive round at the Kingdom Cup, held in September at the Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island, Tom Watson pulled up a chair on the tee box of the par-3 14th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links. In between groups of golfers, he spoke with deep appreciation for the challenges that the Pete Dye layout imposes on players of all ability levels—and explained why he was so successful on the course (where he won twice on tour). “I was always a good up-and-downer,” he said, “and you need to be able to get up and down around here, because you’re gonna miss some greens.”

Fortunately, most groups didn’t have to worry about scrambling for par on the 14th, largely because teams had the opportunity to use Watson’s tee shot as their own. “As my friend Byron Nelson used to say, ‘There’s room inside that,’ ” Watson told one group after he struck an easy nine iron to about eight feet.

Despite the assistance from one of the game’s all-time greats—or perhaps because of it—Kingdom Cup participants focused their efforts on hitting the best shots of their lives on the hole. In some instances, those swings delivered quality results; other times, balls sailed wildly offline and into water.

“Are you Catholic?” Watson asked one player, who was reaching into his pocket for another ball to re-tee. The player nodded.

“Then you must know the rhythm method,” Watson continued with a smile, smoothly taking his club back, briefly pausing at the top, and then letting the downswing fall into place. He methodically chanted a cadence to follow: “One . . . and . . . two,” as he repeated the practice swing.

The demonstration did the trick, and the player flushed his second attempt, hitting his ball to the center of the green.

Over the course of three days, the nearly 100 lucky participants in the Kingdom Cup had the opportunity to experience such moments with Watson and much more. The tournament included two competitive rounds on a pair of Sea Pines’ championship layouts, where attendees interacted with several other notable golfers.

On day one, participants hit tee shots with Annika Sörenstam, then challenged golf influencer Roger Steele to a long-drive contest four holes later. On the back nine, they received some assistance from 2023 Open champion Brian Harman, who launched 300-yard drives over the corner of a 550-yard dogleg par-5. And to cap off the first day, participants got the full PGA Tour treatment from professional caddie Geno Bonnalie, who guided them from tee to green, amusing them with funny tour anecdotes along the way.

The event featured nightly gourmet meals and drinks—including exclusive sips of a yet-to-be-released collector’s edition 38-year-old blended malt Scotch whisky from Dewar’s—served with a generous dose of Southern charm. Participants also received chic additions to their golf wardrobes, including Duca del Cosma shoes, Original Penguin polos, and performance sunglasses from Uswing, all beautifully presented in a Vessel leather weekender bag.

 Of course, the opportunity to meet one of the game’s most decorated champions was an undisputed highlight of the event. Throughout the day on Saturday, Watson shared stories from his playing days, told the occasional joke, and chatted with participants about the best steakhouses and sports teams in his hometown of Kansas City.

That evening, at the awards dinner at the Sea Pines Beach Club, Watson acknowledged that he often participates in private and corporate tournaments throughout the year. For him, however, the Kingdom Cup is unlike any other. “The difference here,” he said, “is that you can tell that everyone is having so much fun.”