Gamesmanship: Top 10 Moments

9 Tom Watson
There is a danger to any form of gamesmanship and that is that instead of putting your opponent "off", it actually puts him "on" instead. In other words, he is incensed at the trickery and performs better than usual. This is known as the “Backfire Syndrome”. A classic example occurred in the 1977 Masters, when Tom Watson was struggling in the final group behind Jack Nicklaus. At the par-five thirteenth, Nicklaus rolled in a birdie putt, then to Watson it seemed that he took the ball out of the cup and waved it at Watson as if to say “Take that!”, or in Glaswegian: "Getitupyepal". Seeing it as gamesmanship, Watson reacted to the taunt with an inspired run of birdies to win the tournament by two shots. Afterwards a bewildered Nicklaus was confronted by Watson and, after being loudly berated, told him he was only waving to the crowd. True or not, it is an excellent example of the dangers in any form of one-upmanship.