Watson is forever young

why is he playing so well at the age of 60?

For one thing, he has never really stopped playing, thanks to the Champions Tour, where he tees it up about a dozen times per season. For another, Watson keeps himself in very good shape. During the winter, he worked out four or five times a week, including exercises to strengthen his legs and upper body. He looks like he’s 40.

“I said, ‘Let’s make amends for the stroke at Turnberry,’ ” Watson said by phone this week. “I made a lousy stroke, but it went in.”

Watson is not delusional. He doesn’t, for a moment, think that these impressive showings mean he should tee it up more often against the younger set. He will play only two tournaments on the PGA Tour in 2010 – the Masters and the British Open.

As for the Masters, he’s not expecting much.

“I can’t carry the ball far enough on 4, 7, 14, and 17,” he said, leaving himself difficult approaches to those treacherous greens. The course is too long for him as it is for many these days.

The British Open is a different story. It will be staged at St. Andrews, and while the five-time Open champ has never won there – his best finish was a tie for second back in 1984 – his experience in links golf should serve him well enough for him to make the cut and perhaps contend. He says he is not planning any practice rounds at St. Andrews prior to tournament week in July.

However he fares, at least we know that, in light of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club’s reversal last year, it will not be Watson’s final Open. He should be a fixture for at least another four or five years.

Will we ever see a repeat of Turnberry? Unlikely. Of course, that’s what we would have thought before last July’s masterpiece. But it is clear that this is one 60-year-old who is not ready to leave the stage. Nor should he.

A thrill for Goydos

More than three decades have passed since Paul Goydos was a member of a sports team. He played second base on his Little League squad in Long Beach, Calif.

“I was a little afraid of the ball,” Goydos recalled.

It’s a good thing, then, that he makes his living in a sport where the ball does not move.

In any case, Goydos, 45, will get another chance to be part of a team. He was named last week as one of Pavin’s assistants for the 2010 Ryder Cup at the Celtic Manic Resort in Wales.

Goydos listed his two tour victories – the 2001 Bay Hill Invitational and the 2007 Sony Open – as his biggest moments in the game, but “this will be right up there.”

Who knows? Maybe he will make the team as a player as well. He’s not ruling it out. He would have to win a tournament or two, but stranger things have happened. Goydos stands 34th on the points list, with the top eight automatically qualifying.