A Braw Brawl For Tom And Jack

All of this ushered the Open into Friday and Saturday and what were to become two of the grandest, most thrilling and astonishing days that the sport has ever known. As single days in competitive golf went, Friday, July 8 and Saturday, July 9, 1977 had to rate right up there with such other landmarks as the last round of the 1975 Masters, when Nicklaus outlasted Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller; with the final day of the British Open in 1972, when Lee Trevino cut the heart out of Nicklaus, Nicklaus' shot at the Slam, and Tony Jacklin; and certainly with the last 18 holes of the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills when Arnold Palmer left wounded soldiers all around Denver.

History will most likely see it as better than any of those. Better than any golf—ever. The display that Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus put on at Turnberry over those last excruciating, compelling, agonizing and interminable 36 holes can only be summed up by quoting from that old RAF monument sitting out there on Turnberry's back nine.

Somewhere on the granite it says: "Their name liveth forever more." Well, if theirs doesn't, there's not a kidney left in a pie in Ayrshire.