Cramer: Watson can't Cink Putt

After a weekend of sports watching and other activities, the Gods are back to recap what was an interesting 3 days in sports. Plenty of baseball games took place, but the highlight of the weekend was what happened in the British Open at Turnberry.

I'll admit, after seeing Tiger Woods miss the cut on Friday, there was no way I thought I was going to be watching any golf for the last 36 holes (or 40 as it turned out to be). I saw that Tom Watson was atop the leader board, but frankly I didn't really care because he is way before my time, and I also didn't see a 59 year old man holding onto a lead at a major tournament.

However, as I awoke up from my slumber, I checked my ESPN application on my blackberry as usual to see if anything interesting had happened in the NBA free agent season, only to see that Tom Watson was right there at the top with only a few holes left to be played. I watched the man, clearly way beyond his days of good looks, hit shot after shot. Despite his weathered face, and slumping walk, it looked like Watson had the stamina and nerve control in him to bring home the Claret Jug just one more time.

As Watson was on his way to a birdie on the 17th hole, Lee Westwood was in the sand on the 18th, and it looked like Watson just had to casually play the 18th hole to par, and he would walk away with the tournament. After a perfect drive on the 18th for Watson, it was almost safe to turn off the television and take my dog out for a walk so that I could get back in time for the trophy presentation to Tom.

Then it got interesting. He hit a shot that landed in the middle of the green, and easily could have been a perfect shot, but got a bad bounce and rolled just to the edge of the fringe. He then putted uphill, getting his ball within 8 feet of the hole. So there he was. A 59 year old man, just 8 feet away from pulling off one of the most inspiring victories in golf history. It almost seemed to good to be true... there was no way he could miss that putt, it just wouldn't be the right ending. But he did, and Stewart Cink, who had hit a long putt for birdie a bit before was suddenly in the picture.

I'm not going to waste any time talking about the playoff, because frankly I think that I could have played those 4 holes better than Watson. Dads and middle-aged men everywhere watched as the man they saw win the British Open 5 times back in the 70's and 80's collapsed. The close-up of Watson's face right before he played his 76th hole of the weekend told it all: a regretful, but proud smirk, trying to fight off the bad feelings of what could have been.

Stewart Cink, the guy with over 500,000 twitter followers (thanks Mike Tirico), cruised to his first ever Major Tournament. You have to be happy for Cink, but there's no way any of Cink's half a million "fans" on twitter could say with a straight face that they didn't feel terrible watching Watson fall apart. The fairy tale ending just wasn't to be.

The next time we see the World's best playing golf, everyone will have their eyes on Tiger again; but for one July weekend, golf fans everywhere were able to watch as a man, way past his prime, fought to make history.