Tom Watson has a reputation for being one of golf’s gentlemen, a great upholder of tradition. So when the eight-time major champion says the game has a “growing problem” with mobile phones, it is worth listening to him.
Watson says his fears are twofold. Firstly, he believes phones detract from the experience of watching live sport.
“Look at Augusta,” the American notes, referring to the Masters, where “patrons” must surrender their mobile phones on entry. “The crowds there…you see joy all over their faces. I mean, they’re actually talking to each other. They are present with each other.”
Watson, 76, grabs my phone off the table and holds it up. “I was in a restaurant in Geneva earlier this week, and I’m looking down at a table, all four people are on their cell phones like this [staring down at my screen]. Not speaking with each other at all. You know, this thing right here… it takes away a lot of the joy. You know what I mean? You lose the experience of humanity. And I’m guilty of it too. But Augusta, I really like the atmosphere at Augusta because of no cell phones.”
Watson’s other fear is less obvious, but his point equally well-made. “We have an issue with betting,” he says. “You can bet on each individual shot [in golf]… and I hate to actually make this public, but what really concerns me is that somebody’s going to be on a cell phone like this, and he’s got the betting app up, and he’s got this guy out here…‘I’m going to bet that he misses this putt.’ And he clicks his $100 bet, and then yells in the guy’s backswing… that’s what concerns me.”
Watson sighs. We are sitting in the Birkdale clubhouse overlooking the 18th green on the first day of this year’s Open. I ask whether he would support a ban on mobile phones at all the majors and big events such as the Ryder Cup. “Oh, absolutely, absolutely.”
Look back at footage of Watson winning his five Open championships, including his one here at Birkdale in 1983 when he beat Andy Bean and Hale Irwin by a stroke, and you have to say he makes a good point.