Watson out for season due to hip replacement surgery

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Like the PGA TOUR, the Champions Tour has also lost a renowned player and Stanford University product with the initials T.W. for the remainder of the season.

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Tom Watson won 39 times in his PGA TOUR career.

In the case of the 50-and-over circuit, the T.W. would be Tom Watson, an eight-time major winner on the PGA TOUR, 12-time Champions Tour winner and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Watson will undergo surgery on Oct. 2 with Dr. Joel Matta of Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., who will perform a total hip replacement procedure on Watson's left hip. His left hip has been bothering Watson for a while and he even considered having arthroscopic surgery on it in 2004 before choosing to deal with the pain through medication and exercise. The problem continued to worsen, leaving Watson with no choice but surgery to get rid of the searing pain.

"This will be the first surgery I've had in my life," Watson told Mechelle Voepel, a newswriter for Watson's hometown paper, the Kansas City Star. "The only reason I'm doing it is to get rid of the pain. It's a quality of life decision. Fortunately, the medical world knows how to do this procedure very well. They have a great track record."

Watson managed to play through the pain and win twice on the Champions Tour in 2008, including a win with good friend Andy North at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf. With that victory, the pair earned a trip to the 2009 season-opening event, the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai, and, if all goes well, the 59-year-old Watson hopes to return to golf by that time.

"The good thing about this procedure is I can put full weight on it immediately," he said to Voepel. "I'll be using a walker, then a cane, and then without a cane. How long does all that take? Nobody knows for sure. It could be 10 days to 2½ weeks before I'm walking without a cane."

Without Watson, the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship will only have 29 players in the possible field of 30. Watson, a consistent golfer who doesn't play in as many events as the other players but usually finishes inside the top-30 in Charles Schwab Cup points, has four other top-10s in addition to his two wins this year. He was ninth in the Charles Schwab Cup standings in 2008 before announcing his surgery plans.

Watson expects to spend his time away from the Champions Tour working on his golf course design business. He's also hoping to finally learn Spanish from a Rosetta Stone program he purchased for his computer. Watson figures that knowing the second language will help him in his business and it's a goal he's had for a while.

And, if he gets bored, he can always call up that other T.W. -- Tiger Woods -- for some post-surgery tips and entertainment ideas.