The Idea Blog

Friedman takes a break from the Middle East to reflect on Tom Watson, golf, and Tom Watson’s golf at Turnberry. From today’s New York Times. Find it here.

This wonderful but cruel game never stops testing or teaching you. “The only comment I can make,” Watson told me after, “is one that the immortal Bobby Jones related: ‘One learns from defeat, not from victory.’ I may never have the chance again to beat the kids, but I took one thing from the last hole: hitting both the tee shot and the approach shots exactly the way I meant to wasn’t good enough. … I had to finish.”