Watson, Funk head the field in Senior Players tournament

TIMONIUM, Md. (AP) — Even if Tom Watson won the British Open, it’s hard to imagine his life would be much better than it is right now.

Watson skipped the past couple weeks on the Champions Tour to work on an instructional DVD and book. Sales should be rather brisk because of his performance last July at Turnberry, when he came tantalizingly close to becoming the oldest player to win a major on the U.S. PGA Tour.

“This DVD was planned in March of this year. It didn’t have anything to do with the British,” Watson said Wednesday before quickly adding, “Oh, by the way, it will help. The timing is pretty darn good.”

Now 60, Watson still gets a thrill out of playing in major tournaments. He’s sure to be a crowd favorite at the Senior Players Championship, which starts today and runs through Sunday at the Baltimore Country Club.

“This is a favorite course of mine,” said Watson, who finished second here in 2007. He didn’t participate last year because he was getting left hip-replacement surgery, an operation that changed his way of life.

“I rode a horse at a parade last Saturday,” he said. “Last year, I couldn’t spread my legs wide enough to get on the back of a horse. Now, man, I can ride a fat horse, no problem. That’s the difference between this year and last year.”

That is not the only difference. Even though he lost a playoff to Stewart Cink in the British Open, Watson has been the recipient of an outpouring of love from around the world.

“The response has been humbling, it’s been overwhelming. It’s a response that I would have never foreseen for a guy finishing second in a golf tournament,” he said. “The theme has been, ‘You’ve given me hope. You’ve given me a second charge in my life. You’re 60 years old and still doing this? Maybe I can still do what I thought I couldn’t do anymore.’ It’s kind of the wonderful theme that’s come out of this thing.”

Fred Funk, one-third of a stellar threesome with Watson and Nick Price today, won’t soon forget Watson’s unexpected brush with history.

“Almost everyone wanted Tom to win that thing, and he did everything he could,” Funk said. “Had he won, that would have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sports accomplishments ever.”

This tournament, the fifth major on the Champions Tour, could come down to duel between Funk and Watson. Funk has finished in the Top 5 in each of the previous four majors this year, and Watson has three top-10 finishes in those events.

Funk expects his threesome to draw the biggest gallery — by far.

“That’s a pretty strong group right there,” he said. “Whoever’s here is probably going to be following our group. Hopefully I play well.”