With his left foot firmly in the sand and his right leg bent at the knee and resting on the grass above the bank, Watts pulled out his 58-degree wedge and blasted a 25-yard shot to within a foot of the hole for a tap-in par to tie Mark O'Meara.
Watts had to be a bit of a contortionist to pull off the shot.
Sadly, his body has been contorted ever since.
"It became a downward spiral very quickly," Watts said earlier this week from his home in Westlake, Texas, just northwest of Dallas.
Watts went on to lose to O'Meara by two shots in that four-hole playoff at Royal Birkdale, where the British Open returned this week for the first time since.
The loss still pains Watts, a former four-time All-American at Oklahoma State.
If there is someone who understands pain — physical, mental and emotional pain — it's the 42-year-old Watts, who is now doing everything in his power to return to the PGA Tor so his peers someday can select him comeback player of the year.
Watts' downward plunge began with walking pneumonia and a left hip injury in 2000. Then came surgery to fix the torn labrum in 2001. Then came two herniated back disks, two hip injuries and a torn knee cartilage.
It was around this time Watts literally couldn't bend over to stick a tee in the ground.
Watts soon learned going to a doctor doesn't guarantee a cure, nor does attending every rehab session.
"There's a lot of people I'd like to blame, I just can't mention them," Watts said, biting his tongue. "I've tried a lot of different therapists, doctors and surgeons, all these people who were so special at fixing golfers, and it just hasn't materialized for me."
Staying committed to one rehabilitation approach is tough. Watts has stayed committed to seven. Or is it eight?
"I would try different theories, different scenarios, and you don't just try them for a week," Watts said. "We're talking three to seven months of dedicating yourself to some kind of a theory. If you do that seven or eight times, it adds up real quick to about four or five years."
Watts retired from golf in 2005. "All that therapy I had for 5½ years just didn't work for me," Watts said. "I worked hard to do what they asked me to do, and it just wasn't the right stuff."
In January of 2006, touring pro Paul Stankowski suggested Watts go see a local chiropractor.
"He set me up with somebody, and that led to somebody else, and then somebody else," Watts said. "I've got four great people around now who take care of me and it's been this way for almost 2½ years. That seems like a long time, and that I should be better after two years. But you've got to understand, five years of bad therapy is a lot to make up for."
More than once, Watts woke up in the morning not liking golf.
"There were a lot of days like
