TURNBERRY, Scotland — These kind of things usually don't end well, no matter how much we might want them to. Golf is a tough enough game for even the youngsters playing in this British Open, and 59-year-olds have no business getting in the way — no matter what their pedigree might be.

But then Tom Watson starts talking about feeling something spiritual out on the links, and you start wondering. He calls the golf course "she," like Turnberry is an eccentric old aunt, and says he feels a serenity when he is with her.

Yesterday, he went out underneath a retro argyle sweater with a 16-year-old as one of his playing partners and shot a 5-under 65 that was as remarkable as it was improbable. It matched the score he posted in the final round on the same course in 1977 to beat Jack Nicklaus by a shot and win the claret jug trophy in what would live in golf lore as the "Duel in the Sun."

The ease with which it came made a lot of his fans — and there are many in Britain, where his success has been great — want to believe. But he's at an age where the supreme confidence of one day can mysteriously disappear by the next.

The day before, he had teased reporters by telling them what a great story it would be if he might somehow win, then laughed at the silliness of it all. He didn't mention anything about the text messages wishing him good luck from a woman named Barbara, who just happens to be married to the man he beat 32 years ago.

He doesn't have many other secrets, because Watson has always been an open book, at least when it comes to golf. He's played on the public stage in four different decades now, and his five British Open wins, second only to Harry Vardon, would testify to a brilliant career even if he had never done anything else.

But win a sixth just nine months after undergoing hip surgery? Against a field that includes Tiger Woods and a host of 20-somethings who hit the ball long and far?

Not likely. Not at an age when nerves fray quicker and muscles ache longer.

Golf may be the one sport that can be played competitively at a comparatively old age, but that age comes with a burden. The oldest player to win one of the four major championships was Julius Boros, who won the 1968 PGA Championship at 48, and the oldest to win the British was Old Tom Morris himself at 46 — and that was 142 years ago.

So how about it, Old Tom Watson? What if somehow, some way, it came true?

"It would be amazing," Watson said. "You can put all kinds of superlative adjectives and all sorts of things to it. It would be amazing."

Indeed, the whole thing is way too crazy, something Watson seems to know but won't just come out and say. Not when the competitive juices are flowing and the game that can sometimes be so humiliating is fun again, at least for a day.

He's been in a similar position before, and it didn't end well. That was the 2003 U.S. Open outside Chicago where the then-53-year-old opened with a 65 before fading and finishing in a tie for 28th.

Golf hasn't been as much fun lately, and Watson knows time is running out, so that makes the round that left him just a stroke behind Miguel Angel Jimenez so special. British Open champions once had a lifetime pass to the tournament, but the age limit is now 60, meaning next year's tournament at St. Andrews will be his last.

He seems resigned to that and says he doesn't want to play when he has no chance to win.