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Terrific Tom
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- It will likely get lost in the midst of everything else that happened in this third round of the PGA Championship. But it was both indicative of the day and of the mood here, a day when everyone was making birdies midst a mood of nostalgia in the aftermath of the remarkable farewell of Jack Nicklaus. There was Tom Watson early in the afternoon, before Tiger Woods teed off, taking us back to the seventies, rolling in birdie after birdie, snakes from everywhere, playing the game like a man, well, two, three decades younger, tying the then-course record with a 65. 
"Played like the Watson of old", he said, and he surely did. The skin became firmer, the hair darker, the step far livelier...like the Watson of old and not the old Watson of today, 50 years old, scaring the senior tour. If he had managed such rounds in this particular tournament in years gone by at the right time, he would have moved into the Nicklaus realm. But this was the only major he couldn't win, like Palmer and Snead with that gaping hole in his resume. But on this day, a man against boys, the PGA was his, if only for just a little while.
Jim Huber is an Emmy award-winning journalist for CNN/Sports Illustrated and a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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