NEW US SENIOR PGA CHAMPION PLAYS IN

RYDER CUP WALES SENIORS OPEN

By STEVEN FRANKLIN

Press Officer, European Seniors Tour

Newly-crowned US Senior PGA champion Denis Watson makes his first appearance on European soil this season when he tees up in the £500,000 Ryder Cup Wales Seniors Open, which starts on Friday at Conwy (Caernarvonshire) Golf Club.

The colourful Zimbabwean joins a strong international field that also includes New Zealand’s Bob Charles, Japan’s Seiji Ebihara, England’s Carl Mason, Italy’s Costantino Rocca, Ireland’s Des Smyth, two-time European Seniors Tour Order of Merit winner Sam Torrance of Scotland and defending champion José Rivero from Spain.

Watson won the US PGA Senior title at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, three weeks ago after a titanic tussle with Argentina’s Eduardo Romero and in the process claimed his first Tour title for almost 23 years.

The Zimbabwean secured three victories on the 1984 US PGA Tour but then sustained serious injuries after striking a hidden tree stump while playing in the 1985 Goodyear Classic at Port Elizabeth. That incident resulted in him requiring a series of wrist, neck and shoulder operations and at one time he was told that he might never play golf again.

“I didn’t play a decent round of golf for a long time after that,” he said. “I had a lot of surgeries and a lot of rehab but it wasn’t until recently that I began to feel healthy again. That is why the win meant so much to me - it has been a long time in coming.”

Watson is joined at Conwy by two other recent winners in the shape of Rocca, who won the recent AIB Irish Seniors Open on just his third start on the European Seniors Tour and Bobby Lincoln of South Africa, who secured last week’s Jersey Seniors Classic at La Moye.

The defending champion in Wales is Spanish former Ryder Cup player Rivero, who won his second European Seniors Tour title when he closed with a four under par 68 to finish a single shot ahead of Torrance, England’s David J Russell, France’s Gery Watine and fellow countryman Juan Quiros in last year’s Championship at the Vale Hotel, Golf & Spa Resort near Cardiff.

Conwy is an altogether different proposition to last year’s inland venue. It is a fine links course which last year became the first Welsh course to stage an Open Championship Final Qualifying event and which this year is also hosting the Ladies’ British Amateur Stroke Play Championship.