Caddy for Life (39 page)

Jeff Julian’s ALS was far more advanced, and he had already been involved in just about every experimental treatment there was, so this was close to being a last-ditch effort. The trip was planned for the week of the PGA.

“One of the things that happens when you are diagnosed with ALS is that you don’t want to just accept it,” Marsha said. “Looking back, the first two doctors we spoke to—Dr. Sorenson in Rochester and a local neurologist we saw soon after that—were probably the most honest with us. They said, ‘This is what it is. Right now, there is no medicine and no cure. Don’t waste your time, your money, or your hope on treatment. Live your life to the fullest as long as you can.’ They probably gave us the best advice of anyone. But at the time, it wasn’t the advice we wanted to hear.” In July there was still hope. Or so it seemed. Bruce had heard about the cobra venom soon after his diagnosis and had told Watson about it.

When Bruce Lietzke told Watson that his brother Brian had a friend in Texas who had been diagnosed in 1975 and had taken cobra venom and was still living with the disease, Watson, Bruce, and Marsha were, if nothing else, intrigued. “Again, we knew the odds were long,” Watson said. “But we’re already dealing with long odds to begin with. Your life is on the line, you try things. I told Bruce if it was me, I’d try it. I didn’t expect much, neither did he or Marsha, but there was nothing lost by trying.”

Time would tell on the Flagyl, and who knew what would happen with the cobra venom. In the meantime, Bruce was excited to be home, and pleased—if a little bit embarrassed—to be honored with the scholarship. He had decided to kick in $1,000 of his own money to Bonnie Fewel, the high school senior who had won the scholarship. “The money they’re giving her is for books and fees and things like that,” he said. “I want her to have some money she can use just to have a good time.”

Bruce’s part of the ceremony was brief. Most of the time was taken up by politicians (including Governor John Rowland, who in spite of a police escort showed up ten minutes late) and local officials congratulating one another on keeping the tournament alive even though there was no title sponsor for 2003. When Bruce was introduced, he received a warm ovation and let Marsha—who was getting used to speaking on his behalf—tell everyone how he felt. “Bruce is thrilled to be back and to be a part of this, because this is where it all began for him,” she said. “He’s very proud to have this scholarship carry his name.” She then surprised Bonnie by handing her the check for $1,000 and telling her that Bruce wanted her to use it to have a good time. Shocked, Bonnie let out a shriek and hugged Bruce, who was both delighted and slightly embarrassed by the commotion being made on his behalf. During forty-five minutes of speeches, presentations, and announcements, there was nothing that touched the warmth clearly felt by everyone involved when Bruce and Marsha made their presentation to Bonnie.

The trip home was fun and nostalgic and a little bit sad. Bruce saw people he hadn’t seen for years and couldn’t help but wonder if he would see them again. By the time the ceremony was over and Bruce had shaken every hand in the place and struggled through several interviews with local media members, he was ready to go home. “This has been fun,” he said. “But I’m a little worn out.”

The trip to the Bahamas proved to be about as fruitless as they had expected, although it was still discouraging. “The day after Bruce took the cobra venom the guy said to him that his speech sounded better,” Marsha said. “Well, I knew it didn’t sound better and he knew it didn’t sound better. We were pretty convinced at that point that we were actually dealing with a snake oil salesman. What was discouraging about the trip was that, for the first time, we felt like we were dealing with people who took advantage of desperate people. We didn’t want to feel like we were in that category, and yet that’s where we were headed.”

Even though he doubted that the venom was going to do any good, Bruce came home with an inhaler that he was supposed to continue using, presumably forever once it began to work. Unfortunately it didn’t ever begin to work. During this same period it became evident that the Flagyl wasn’t having any effect either. The high hopes of July were rapidly becoming the fading hopes of August.

Watson had his first poor tournament of the summer at the PGA. With Bill Leahey caddying for the first time since the 1981 Kemper Open, he shot 75-75 and missed the cut. As with the two British Opens, Watson enjoyed the company of his fill-in caddy but felt Bruce’s absence, not so much from a golf standpoint as from a companionship standpoint. “Bill and Neil are wonderful guys, and they worked hard and did everything I asked them,” Watson said. “But I missed Bruce. How could I not miss him? I think they both knew I missed Bruce, and there was an emotional tug for all of us.”

Bruce was back on the bag two weeks later in Portland, Oregon, for the JELD-WEN Tradition—the fifth of the so-called Senior majors. By this time neither he nor Watson was concerned about whether an event was a major or a nonmajor; they both just wanted to win. They had been close twice and then Bruce had missed the victory in Scotland. “I wanted very much to win again
with
Bruce,” Watson said. “I don’t think I was pressing because of it, but I was aware of it and so was he. I told him when I got back from Scotland that the only reason I’d won was because he’d put a hex on poor Carl Mason on that eighteenth hole.”

For his part, Bruce had told all his friends that Watson had won
because
he hadn’t gone to Scotland and that if Watson won at the PGA he was going to demand 10 percent of the purse and then retire.

The week in Portland began on a high note when John Solheim, the chairman of the Ping corporation, presented Tom and Bruce with gold-plated putters. Each bore an identical inscription: “Tom Watson and Bruce Edwards: Friends, Companions, and Brothers Forever.”

“Brought tears to my eyes,” Watson said. The same was true of Bruce. For both men, the gesture and the words meant far more than the putter itself.

For a long time on the weekend, it looked as if the Tradition was going to be a repeat of the Senior Open and the Senior Players. Watson played well the first two days, shooting a stunning 62 in the second round to take a four-shot lead over Jim Ahern going into the third round. But as had been the case throughout the summer, he struggled on Saturday, shooting 73 to let the rest of the field get back into contention. He entered the final round tied with Tom Kite and Morris Hatalsky for second place, one shot behind Ahern.

There was one good moment on Saturday. At the par-five 16th hole, Watson missed the green to the left with his second shot and caught a hanging lie with the pin no more than 25 feet from where he was standing. It was a shot very similar to the one at the 17th hole at Pebble Beach in 1982. As he pulled his wedge out of the bag, Watson shot a look at Bruce and said, “Aren’t you going to tell me to knock it close?”

“I only do that,” Bruce answered, “during majors.”

They both cracked up, then Watson chipped to three feet and made birdie.

“I’m not sure what’s more amazing, that he was thinking the exact same thing I was thinking about the shot and the lie, or that he came up with an answer like that so quickly,” Watson said. “Actually, when you think about it, neither is really that amazing at all. They’re both just Bruce.”

Sunday was an up-and-down day from start to finish. Watson played well on the front nine, then found water on the 10th hole. Peter Jacobsen, the longtime PGA Tour player whose company was managing the event (he is Portland-based), had come out to watch after Watson made the turn, hoping to help push him to the win. “As soon as he knocked the ball in the water,” Jacobsen said later, “I said, ‘I’m out of here.’ I felt like I was a jinx.”

Watson made a good up-and-down there to save bogey, righted himself, and got to the 16th—the easiest hole on the golf course—tied for the lead with Kite and Gil Morgan and one shot ahead of Ahern. Kite and Ahern were playing one group behind him. “I was thinking I had to birdie sixteen and then see what I could do on the last two holes,” he said.

He didn’t birdie 16. Instead he hit his second shot in the water and had to work to save bogey. He walked off the 16th green convinced he had blown the tournament. “I figured Jim and Tom both had sixteen and eighteen”—another par-five—“to play and it was going to be really hard for both of them to not make at least one birdie, if not two, on those holes. I thought I had lost, that I’d given it away right there.”

As always, Bruce was in his ear, reminding him a lot could still happen—remember Turnberry?—and that he needed to focus on playing the last two holes well. As always, Watson put the mistake behind him. He parred 17 and was in the bunker at 18 in two, looking at what he thought was a fairly easy bunker shot. “I knew I had, at worst, a good chance to get up and down,” he said. “It was the kind of shot you should be able to get to no more than six feet from the flag.”

As he walked up to the bunker, Watson checked the scoreboard. Ahern had birdied the 16th. But Kite had not. That left Watson, Kite, Ahern, and Morgan—who was already in the clubhouse—tied for the lead. If he got up and down for birdie, he would have a one-shot lead. “I had been thinking I had to make birdie to have a chance to play off,” he said. “When I saw the board, I realized if I made birdie, chances were that I would do no worse than play off.”

He knocked the bunker shot to about four feet and, with the wind whipping, managed to nudge the birdie putt into the hole. Now he had the lead. Kite and Ahern had both parred 17. If either or both birdied 18, there would be a playoff. Watson and Bruce went into the scorer’s tent and went over the card, and Watson signed for a two-under-par 70. Then they sat together and watched Kite and Ahern play 18.

Kite had to lay his second shot up but, always a superb wedge player, knocked his third shot to about five feet. Ahern was much closer to the green in two, but his chip pulled up eight feet short. Both had makeable birdie putts. But Ahern missed. “At that moment it occurred to me that Tom’s just not a good putter inside six feet anymore,” Watson said. “I didn’t say anything to Bruce, but I was thinking there was a pretty good chance he’d miss. I didn’t want to think about it too much, because I had to be mentally prepared to go out there and play off if he made it. But the thought crossed my mind that he could miss.”

He did. Watson had won. As soon as the putt slid by the hole, Watson and Bruce hugged—their first victory hug since that cold October weekend in Oklahoma City ten months earlier when Bruce had first noticed the problem with his hand. That seemed like a long time ago at that moment.

“I thought he might miss and he did,” Watson said to Bruce.

Bruce’s answer was direct: “Hey,” he said. “We aren’t done yet.”

“You’re right,” Watson said. “We’re not close to being done.”

Later, talking about that moment, Watson’s voice was very soft. “I think we both wanted to take the approach that this was just another win and that there were more to come,” he said. “We’ve always been that way. Celebrate, yes, but then move on to whatever is next. In a sense, we did take it that way, but in another sense, we both knew this was very special.”

They weren’t the only ones. When they came out of the trailer, the first person to greet them was Jacobsen. “You know I love Tom Kite,” he said. “But I have to admit, I was thrilled when he missed that putt.”

The following week, the cover of
Golf World,
the magazine that chronicles all the tours on a weekly basis, did not feature Adam Scott, who had won the new $5 million Deutsche Bank Championship on the PGA Tour. It didn’t feature Tom Watson either. The cover boy was Bruce Edwards, and the subhead said, “Caddie Bruce Edwards carries Tom Watson to another major championship.”

Bruce, of course, disagreed. “It wasn’t a major,” he said.

Watson always takes September off, so Bruce had time to rest, enjoy the victory at the Tradition, and travel to Boston for the family reunion. By then he and Marsha both understood that none of the medications he was taking were having any effect. His speech was getting worse, he was continuing to lose weight, and his legs were getting sore and tired far more quickly than they had at the beginning of the summer. Sleep had become difficult because he often had trouble breathing when he was lying down.

Predictably his emotions swung more frequently than they had in the initial stages after his diagnosis. In the spring, when his legs still felt strong, he had talked confidently about caddying throughout 2004, saying he knew he would work the Masters again and that he was still holding out hope that Watson would get into the Open again so they could go to Shinnecock together. By the fall, the constant aching in his legs, the continued deterioriation of his speech, and the fatigue he often felt all made it apparent to him that caddying in 2004 would be difficult, if not impossible.

“If I go to Augusta, it would have to be in a cart,” he said quietly one night during the family reunion weekend at Gwyn’s house. “I know that my legs couldn’t take those hills for four days anymore.”

There was sadness in his voice as he spoke, as if saying the words were some form of surrender. From the very first day, he had vowed not to give in to the disease, almost convinced that his mind could command his body not to weaken to the point where he couldn’t caddy anymore. As strong as his mind and his heart were, each day brought him closer to realizing that they could not stop ALS from wreaking havoc on his body. The idea of giving up the Masters brought home the realization that the day was coming when he wouldn’t be able to caddy anymore.

“If he wants me to, I’ll call Hootie”—Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson—“myself and ask him to let Bruce work out of a cart,” Watson said. “I would be very surprised if Hootie were to say no under the circumstances. That’s all up to Bruce. I’ll do whatever he wants.” He paused and took a deep breath, knowing, like Bruce, that what he would say next was another step closer to the end of their working relationship. “Knowing Bruce, my guess is he wouldn’t want me to do that,” he said. “I know he wants to work at Augusta again. But I also know if he works in a cart, it will be a media circus, and he knows that too. It wouldn’t bother me a bit. I’ll make the call tomorrow if he asks me to. But my guess is, in the end, he won’t want me to do it.”