It wasn’t what Watson wanted, but Friday was perfect Masters ending

Among the most captivating scenes at Augusta National is the 170-yard hole known as Redbud, so named for the flowering tree that blooms clusters of orchid-pink blooms.

Nestled seamlessly between the 15th green and the 17th tee, the hole and its narrow pond are surrounded by a hill of spectators, another wedge of spectators across the water and three grandstands.

All of which seemed to morph into one living, breathing entity on Friday, when Tom Watson hit onto the 16th green for the final time in the last of his 43 Masters.

For nearly two minutes as he made the walk up, patrons snapped to attention, watched him pass and cheered him euphorically.

“Rolling thunder,” said Leawood’s Gene Zwolinski, who was clad in a Royals hat hoping Watson might notice the hometown touch.

Watson did what he did most of the last two days, touching the bill of his cap and flashing that tranquil smile of his and nodding so much you wonder if he might have whiplash by now.

The scene was “kind of an amphitheater: right, left and round. Not kind of; it really is,” he said. “It was a special walk there.”

But there still was a filter in his reactions, if not a force-field.

Because Watson being Watson, there would be no retreat or concession until this grand finale really was over.

“If I make that putt, and I birdie 17, I’m right in there,” he said. “I’m playing the weekend. I’m still thinking golf.”

But Watson, 66, did not make that putt, and he did not birdie 17, and he finished with a 6-over par with 78 on the day and a total of 8-over 152 for two rounds. He failed to make the cut.

That was a shame, perhaps.

But it also was perfect poetry.

As it played out, this day was all about Watson in ways it never would have been if he’d salvaged the cut only to not contend and be just a footnote as it all gets down to the nitty-gritty on Saturday and Sunday.

Instead, this was a farewell worthy of the dignity he’s given the game, carried off with the gracious sense of timing of a self-aware realist who knows this course now is “a little bit out of my league.”

It comes before it had to, yes, but it leaves us wanting more instead of potentially facing that awkward scenario of overstaying that is understandably confounding for athletes to deal with.

By not making the cut, Watson was an honorary focal point who absorbed “thank you, Tom” at least a few of the hundreds of times he was pelted with those words as he briskly walked the 7,435-yard course one last time.

“I heard it a lot today …,” said a smiling Watson, the eight-time major champion who won two Masters. “I think what it meant was that maybe I succeeded in what I tried to do when I was a kid: I hit shots. I hit shots that they will remember, and I hope I did it in the right way, too.

“I think they thanked me for that.”

There was no more poignant expression of that gratitude, though, than when Watson made his way up to the 18th green.

By then, he knew he essentially had been eliminated and no longer could or would deny it.

Midway through 17, as he awaited his turn, he stood expressionless with his hands on his hips and simply turned to the crowd.

It was as if that were the moment he allowed himself to transition from battling to basking.

Now, he was walking up his last hill in a major, and by the prim standards Watson has stood for on the course he went absolutely berserk.

Meaning he took off his cap and kept it off for long seconds before waving to an adoring crowd made up of the likes of Marc and Mathew Miller, natives of Knoxville, Tenn.

Their first Masters had been Watson’s 1977 victory, and they’ve long admired him as “the true epitome of the gentleman golfer,” Mathew Miller said.

So that’s why they could be seen from early on in the day, practically running at times to keep pace with Watson.

“I wanted to walk stride for stride with a champion, literally,” Mathew Miller said.

By day’s end, they were part of a mass movement.

So here on the 18th hole they looked for angles to peer through the maze of people before them to see the last moments of the champion’s career at this level.

They’d see Watson thump his heart and point to the crowd and wipe tears from his eyes. Watson “didn’t think I was going to cry,” he told caddie Neil Oxman after he misted up.

Then Watson almost sank a crazy, looping putt from about 60 feet away that fell short.

The ferocious competitor in him stood down, and Watson just grinned and shrugged as the crowd engulfed him again in cheers.

“It was heart-warming,” he said.

Still, Watson was more pensive than emotional after walking off the course arm-in-arm with his wife, Hilary.

Yes, he acknowledged he cried.

But he hardly was weeping as he remembered he had for Jack Nicklaus on Nicklaus’ last hole at St. Andrews in 2005.

“I was crying like a baby (for Nicklaus),” he said. “Just here is the greatest player who’s ever played the game, he’s taking his last walk, and I’m lucky enough to be in the same group, being able to walk inside the ropes with him.

“That was really special. I still tear up thinking about that.”

If it sounds strange that he’d feel that for Nicklaus but not quite himself, it’s actually completely consistent with how Watson’s career has been marked by his own humility and desire to honor the game.

Which is why he could show so much emotion for another golf icon but not betray that much when it came to his own moment.

It was about the golf, not himself.

But those things somehow took care of each other.

“I was a shy kid, and one of the ways I expressed myself was to hit a golf shot,’ “ he said. “... To hit a good golf shot was a way of, kind of a non‐verbal way of communicating. I parlayed that into a professional golf career. Hope I entertained a lot of people over the years.”

Suddenly, that career is in a rear-mirror kaleidoscope for Watson, who won five British Opens but will tell you that his ’77 win here catapulted his career forward as it moved him out of a phase in which he was stigmatized as “a choker.”

“I know I won probably more than my share,” said Watson, who won 39 PGA Tour titles. “But on the other hand, there are a few that got away. I guess it all balances out in the end, just like they say.”

Especially considering … who knew if his dream ever would even begin?

When Watson was 14 and won the Kansas City Match Play championship, he thought, “Maybe I’m good enough some day to be a pro.” He was still wondering, and fretting, when he graduated from Stanford in 1971.

If it didn’t work out, he said, “Dad said, ‘Well, son, might be able to find you a job selling insurance,’ “ Watson recalled, laughing.

“Being a shy kid, I’m not much of a salesman,” he said. “That didn’t really set well, like (it) was an option.”

As it happened, golf worked out just fine — punctuated by a week leading to a day like no other for Watson.

On Tuesday, Nicklaus referred to him as one of the five or six best players ever to have lived, and that’s how he was being serenaded on Thursday or Friday.

Like sunflowers tracking the sun on Friday, fans turned his way in waves as he passed.

At every tee and green, and many times along the way, there was a sustained ovation for Watson.

If you followed his path, watched him walk the fairway twirling a club over his shoulder or as a walking stick, you heard things like “living legend” and “show us the way, Tom” and the outmoded “youtheman” and saw a guy take the cigar out of his mouth to yell “Thank you, Tom.”

As Watson approached the second green and the crowd boomed, a woman more conscious of golf etiquette than the moment wonder aloud, “Is that appropriate?”

Maybe never more so.

And at just the right time.

“I think we know,” Watson said, “when it’s time to say ‘no mas.’ ”

This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 9:28 PM with the headline "It wasn’t what Watson wanted, but Friday was perfect Masters ending."