Researching Tom Watson

Born in Sheffield, Watson was raised in Kidderminster where he was educated at King Charles I School. He first became involved in Labour Party and trade union activism when studying at the University of Hull and was chair of the National Organisation of Labour Students from 1992 to 1993. After working in marketing and advertising, he began working full-time for the Labour Party, including on its 1997 general election campaign, and then for the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union.

Elected MP for West Bromwich East at the 2001 general election, Watson was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Veterans from May to September 2006 and Minister for Digital Engagement and Civil Service Issues at the Cabinet Office from 2008 to 2009. In October 2011, Ed Miliband appointed him as the Labour Party's National Campaign Coordinator and as Deputy Chair of the National Executive Committee. He resigned from both roles in July 2013 following a controversy over the selection of a new parliamentary candidate for Falkirk to replace Eric Joyce.

On 12 September 2015, Watson was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, alongside new leader Jeremy Corbyn, gaining 198,962 votes or 50.7%, including second preference votes from those who voted for other candidates. Following the conviction of Carl Beech in July 2019 for making false allegations of paedophilia, Watson was criticised by high-profile victims and their relatives for his role in the affair. On 6 November 2019, Watson announced that he would be standing down both as an MP and as Deputy Leader, and leave office on 12 December 2019, stating that his reasons for standing down were "personal, not political". He later admitted that he had voted for Owen Smith in the 2016 leadership election. In March 2020, he was appointed chair of UK Music and later that year was made a senior adviser on problem gambling to Flutter Entertainment.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Watson was one of the leading golf players in the world, winning eight major championships and heading the PGA Tour money list five times. He was the number one player in the world according to McCormack's World Golf Rankings from 1978 until 1982; in both 1983 and 1984, he was ranked second behind Seve Ballesteros. He also spent 32 weeks in the top 10 of the successor Sony Rankings in their debut in 1986.

Watson is also notable for his longevity: at nearly sixty years of age, and 26 years after his last major championship victory, he led after the second and third rounds of The Open Championship in 2009, but lost in a four-hole playoff. With a chance to win the tournament with par on the 72nd hole, he missed an putt, then lost to Stewart Cink in the playoff.

Several of Watson's major victories came at the expense of Jack Nicklaus, the man he replaced as number one, most notably the 1977 Masters, 1977 Open Championship, and the 1982 U.S. Open. Though his rivalry with Nicklaus was intense, their friendly competitiveness served to increase golf's popularity at the time.

In Watson's illustrious career, his eight major championships include five Open Championships, two Masters titles, and one U.S. Open title. The only major that has eluded him is the PGA Championship; if he had won it would have put him in an elite group of golfing "career grand slam" winners that includes Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods. In all, Watson's eight majors ranks sixth on the list of total major championship victories, behind only Nicklaus, Woods, Walter Hagen, Hogan, and Player.

Watson is also regarded as one of the greatest links players of all time, a claim backed up by his five Open Championship victories, his runner-up finishes at the 1984 Open Championship and 2009 Open Championship, and his three Senior British Open Championship titles in his mid-50s (2003, 2005, and 2007).

Watson played on four Ryder Cup teams and captained the American side to victory in 1993 at The Belfry in England. More than twenty years later, Watson again captained the U.S. Team in 2014 in Scotland, this time in a loss.