Tom Watson (above) said he may have to buy a home around here, now that he’s won a second straight golf tournament out at the Cheval course where he won the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am Sunday when younger pursuer Scott Hoch blew a gimme putt on the final hole.

It was the kind you and I would miss with lot less hanging on it than the 52-year-old Hoch had, which was a bundle. It was not of the length he should have missed — a tad over four feet. Few there, or watching on television, sulked. Watson, now 58 and grizzled from all those afternoons in the sunshine, is a fine, fine man who has won tournaments all over the place, and will keep on, for a while.

Said he doesn’t play in tournaments just to play, but plays to win. When that chance ends, so will he, he said. Anyway, this was only his second win in Florida, both at Cheval, in the Outback, which will be around a long time. The Outback chief, Chris Sullivan, was in the Watson pairing.

Hoch, playing in the group behind Sullivan and Watson, had a shot at forcing a sudden-death playoff with the short bogey putt on the last hole. He seemed not to take much time. He hit it too hard. It lipped out and Watson, waiting at the scoring table, but not watching, had won his 39th professional tournament, on the PGA and Seniors, now called Champions Tours.

Watson, gracious as ever, conceded, he won “through the back door.”

He did. But Hoch had an easy chance to win through the front door because Watson’s second shot on the final hole drifted into the waterside hazard. Hoch did not take advantage of the opening, he could not squeeze through.

The win was wildly cheered because Tom Watson is Tom Watson and Scott Hoch is Scott Hoch.

Forgotten in all this flurry between the two was the great early showing of Mark Wiebe, just 50, but hot on the Seniors. He had a lead on No. 14 but fell apart in the drive to the finish.

However, this grand golf affair so fully spnonsored by The Outback people was presented virtually without flaw. Oh, an amateur was eliminated over a handicap louse-up but that was about it. The Outback bosses, Jeff Smith, Sullivan and Basham (who injured no one in the gallery with an errant shot — slice, hook, top, skull, or inside upshot), Paul Avery, Jeff Smith, all did well, as did the volunteer bigshots, like Jack Suarez, Tampa host pro Gary Koch, and all the others who saw to it that the tournament was what they wanted it to be, top of the line. 

A blessing was moving the tournament to April, from February, freezing rain time to sunburn time, if you were careless. The crowds were record-setting, perhaps 20,000 the first two days first days to 25,000 Sunday. The amateur field drew celebrities such as Joe Theismann, George Lopez, Ronde Barber, Derrick Brooks, and
Vinny Testaverde, who is moving back to Tampa.

“Come a long way, haven’t we, bubba,” said early and continuing booster, Bob Murphy, of, well, Mulberry, originally, or a town now gone, near there.

“So have you, sir,” I replied. I reminded him he was from Mulberry, got a partial scholarship to the University of Florida, got hurt early, then learned to play golf, and became the fine golf success — even now, like Koch, a commentator— he has become. Good man, Murph. Good roots. Once when he was playing in the Masters, his putting was off. We went to downtown Augusta and he practiced pool to sharpen his eyes, he said. Played better at the Masters the next day.

“I remember that,” he said.

Thanks, Outbackers, for making this tournament what it has become, and all you Tampa area professionals as well. Come a long way from a $20,000 purse, eh?