He’s never had a lesson but Bubba’s got 10 wins
tHeY say you can’t shape shots with modern clubs and golf balls, leading to craftsmen like Lee trevino and seve Ballesteros being lost to the game for ever.
But there is one glorious exception. One man who taught himself to play like seve and Lee did and who follows in a hallowed tradition. Raise a glass to the brilliant Bubba Watson.
I must confess that, as he disappeared from view last year due to a debilitating illness, I had quite forgotten he’s right up there with Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson among the best players to watch in golf.
so what a joy to see him use his vivid imagination on one of the top five courses in America to win his third Genesis Open on sunday.
It is hardly surprising that Riviera suits him down to the ground, just as Augusta does (he has two green jackets) with its severely contouring fairways. Classic courses bring out the class.
If the fairway sloped to the right, like the 18th, the left- handed Watson hit a low draw to utilise the curve. the par-five 17th called for a big hit to bring the green in range and he jumped out of his boots to crash it 350 yards. On saturday, at the par-five first, he shaped a five iron so expertly around a greenside bunker from 220 yards that it finished six inches from the flag.
Most of the time he hit his characteristic fade, like with his opening drive, when he slowed down his swing to take 50 yards off the shot to make sure it did not run out of fairway.
At the seventh he was blocked out by a tree, so he brought a wedge shot back in his stance, meaning it flew over one limb but under another while moving 10 yards to the right in the air to finish 20ft from the flag. ‘I just love pulling off shots like that,’ he said, and we all just love watching him try.
this was his 10th PGA tour victory, which is not bad for a man who has not had a lesson to this day and led to an understandable outpouring of pride in the press room. ‘Nobody thought that Bubba Watson from Bagdad, Florida, would ever get to 10 wins, let’s be honest,’ he said. ‘Without lessons, a bit of a head case, hooking the ball, slicing the ball, can’t putt, you know? And now somehow we’re here, making fun of it.’
Actually, we weren’t making fun of it at all. We were celebrating the game’s one true maverick.
No surprise to learn that trevino was one of the first to send him a congratulatory text — and how seve would have smiled.