What was the best moment of your career?
I have had several. Winning The Open Championship at Turnberry in 1977 was one of them, winning the US Open at Pebble Beach in 1982 another. I also won a men’s tournament in Kansas when I was 14.

Turnberry was very special. My game was in good order at the time, although I did not like playing on links courses then. I did not like the imprecise nature of the way the game is played on linksland. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I had a pretty stern talking to myself, saying: “I shouldn’t be thinking this way because all the emphasis is on negative thoughts rather than positive thoughts.”

It isn’t a good mental condition to be in when you don’t like the courses you are playing. I changed my attitude in 1979 when not playing well at Lytham St Annes. I decided to stop fighting it, and the next year I won at Muirfield, and then at Troon and Birkdale.

Who was the best player you played against?
Jack Nicklaus. Jack had the ability to hit the proper shot the proper distance, with the proper risk-reward, better than anybody that I ever played golf with.

What was the worst thing about being a professional golfer?
The travel, the problems with travel and the desire to be back home. In my first two years, I drove the tour so had long stretches of time to be by myself on the open road and, in fact, I cherished those moments. It was a lot easier to fly but those quiet moments travelling gave me time to reflect on a lot of different things. Life today is too busy; it is too filled up. Sometimes you don’t have the time simply to reflect.

What is the worst thing about golf today?
The game has got too easy to play with the equipment changes. It has taken some of the element of skill away from the game. I sound like a grumpy old man when I say that, I know, but the game is different now. The ball goes 10% or 15% farther than it did 20 years ago. When you hit the ball in the rough, you can stop the ball on the green. When you mis-hit a drive, the ball still travels pretty much its maximum distance anyway, because players use big-headed drivers.

What was the best advice you were given as a player?
To play with and to watch the best players, and to learn from that how to play the game. That was the advice given to me by the local club professional with whom I played just about every Monday during the summer. He was Stan Thirsk, my good friend and mentor.

What was the best part of your game?
My short game and my putting. My short game was excellent and that is one of the reasons I did so well in The Open. In bad conditions, people are going to miss more greens and I was the best at getting the ball up and down, like Seve Ballesteros. Seve was a magician when it came to getting the ball up and down. If you look at the difference between an amateur golfer and a pro, that’s the biggest difference there is. The really good amateurs can hit the ball well but the pros save pars on a more regular basis than the amateurs.

What is your best tip about playing Turnberry?
The premier shot on the golf course is the tee shot at No 9. You have to understand the direction of the wind. If the wind is blowing from left to right, you must aim just left of the stone; if it is right to left, it is just right of the stone. But how much? You have to determine that. It is a crown fairway, which makes it play very small and reduces the width. To hit the proper shot to get the ball in play there is probably the critical shot on the golf course.

Where are you now?
I haven’t played a lot on the Champions Tour recently but I am playing in the Open Championship at Turnberry, the Senior Open championship and the US Senior Open championship. I am also spending a tremendous amount of time making an instructional video in conjunction with the director of ABC televised golf, Terry Jastrow. The video is about how I learnt to play and what I think is important in the game. We will shoot it in September and release it next year. It is a two-DVD set with up to about four hours of content. I live in Stilwell in Kansas.

- Tom Watson plays in the Senior Open championship at Sunningdale, July 23-26. For your chance to win a one-on-one coaching session with him, courtesy of tournament sponsors Mastercard, go to www.timesonline.co.uk/watson