Watson On Reed: "After winning three out of the first 14, you've got to give the guy a little bit of credit."

Tom Watson stopped in the Toshiba Classic media center Thursday as part of his appearance in the Champions Tour event (which, btw, Toshiba just renewed through 2017).

The talk was mostly centered around the Ryder Cup but the confidence of Patrick Reed came up.

As you'd expect, Watson had plenty to say.

TOM WATSON:  Well, when you win, you have that aura that you're at the top of your game and it's hard for anybody to beat you.  That's a good place to be.  As we all know, the game can turn on you and it will turn on you and you'll go through the low spells.  What Patrick said, I can understand him saying that, but after 14 events and winning three of them, I guess maybe he has a little bit of street cred.  After my first event winning, I said I hope my goal was to be the best golfer in the world.  After winning three out of the first 14, you've got to give the guy a little bit of credit.

Q.  Well, he's not guaranteed obviously, the double points this year, the majors and everything else, but he's in the fourth spot right now for the Ryder Cup.

TOM WATSON:  That's right.  We have a very young looking team right now as you look down on it.  We do have some experience on the team.  You have Jimmy Walker who's won three times, Patrick Reed right in there, of course Dustin Johnson has been lighting it up and playing well.  You've got a lot of players right there.  Then you have the fact that Tiger has not played well and is injured.  There's a story in itself.  I want Tiger to be on the team in the worst way, I just hope he's healthy enough to be able to play.  It's really early yet, way too early to tell.  Ted Bishop, the president of the PGA, is our statistician and he's calculated it's going to take 4,637 points to be in the top nine to get on the team.  Who knows what the points are going to be but nobody's really gotten up to that level.  I trust that Ted's pretty accurate as far as what that point level's going to be to make the team.

And there was this question about the emotions for him Captaining in Scotland, which, depending on the Scot, could elicit a chuckle or a call to ban the man from the country.

TOM WATSON:  Well, first of all, I love playing golf in Scotland and I've had good success over there obviously.  Also, I had a chance to go and play various courses over there in the non‑Open rotation and just would do what most golfers do when they go over there, just go over and have some fun playing the great links courses over there.  I've done that and I guess I've created a good relationship with the people because I love the game of golf like they love it.  They love the game.  It's part of the fabric of their life and of course it's very much a part of the fabric of my life, so we have a lot of common ground to share.  The only problem I have is I can't understand them, I still can't after 1975 going through immigration there right at Prestwick; no, Edinburgh, I couldn't understand a word the person said to me and it just continued.  You keep trying to listen for it, but sometimes I need a translator.