Bubba

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Bubba Watson was born in Bagdad, Florida, in November of 1978. Of course, he wasn’t christened Bubba; his full name is Gerry Lester Watson, after his father.

At an early stage, however, dad decided that his son looked like NFL defensive end Bubba Smith – and the nickname stuck.

When he was six, Bubba’s dad gave him a cut-down nine-iron and by the age of eight he had his first set of clubs. His father, a huge fan of the New York Yankees, could see his son was a gifted sportsman.

“He just had a dream that I would play baseball,” said Watson later. “I played it; I was good at it. At high school my dad said I had to choose; baseball or golf. I chose golf. He was a little upset at first but he got used to the idea – and it worked out.”

Watson famously never had a golf lesson, but what he did have was a phenomenal appetite for practice. That paid off as he played for Faulkner State Community College, then represented the University of Georgia. He helped the Bulldogs to win the Southeastern Conference title in 2000.

Bubba Watson turned pro in 2002, but it would be several years before the big left- hander would taste victory at the highest level of the sport.

He played for three years on the Nationwide Tour – the then-equivalent of the Korn Ferry Tour – and made it to the PGA Tour in 2006. At that stage, he was known mainly for his extremely long hitting.

One drive that year, at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, was measured at 424 yards.

He has gone longer since, with a 455-yard effort at Pebble Beach in 2019.

At the 2007 US Open – only his second Major championship – he was one shot off the lead at the halfway stage. Watson slipped down the leaderboard over the weekend, but finished tied for fifth – still his highest finish in the event.

That elusive first pro win finally arrived in Watson’s 15th event of his fifth year on the PGA Tour, 2010. That victory, at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, came against the background of upheaval in his home life.

His father was battling cancer and there were fears – happily groundless – that his wife Angie also had cancer, and Watson later admitted that the only place he found peace was inside the ropes.

He beat Corey Pavin and Scott Verplank in a playoff to claim that maiden win, and found himself in another head-to-head shootout weeks later, at the PGA Championship.

Watson’s superb final round of 68 lifted him to an 11-under-par total that set up a playoff against Martin Kaymer. Watson birdied the first in the three-hole playoff, but his bold approach on the third found water and the German took the title by a single shot.

Bubba Watson won twice on the PGA Tour in 2011, and came into the first Major of the following year, the Masters, in excellent form.

He was high on the leaderboard through the first three days at Augusta and his best round of the week, a 68, put him into a sudden-death playoff against Louis Oosthuizen.

What happened next has entered golfing folklore. Both men parred the first extra hole and at the next, the 10th , Watson’s drive flew deep into the trees to the right of the fairway.

As Watson later described it, his lie was good, the marshals created a “hallway” of fans to allow him to escape, and the wind was helping his ball towards the green. 

He hit a monster hook that finished pin high and, when Oosthuizen bogeyed the hole, he tapped in for par to clinch his first Green Jacket.

Watson said: “If I had been in the middle of the fairway, there’s a billion shots I could have hit. Having only one shot, one thing I could do at that moment, made that shot so much easier for me.”

That’s a typically modest read of an extraordinary golf shot. As his long-time caddie Ted Scott used to say to Watson: “I just carry the paint brushes – you’re the artist.”

Two years later, he proved his Augusta triumph was no fluke when he repeated the feat. Watson went into the final round level with Jordan Spieth, who jumped out into a two- shot lead early on.

But Watson roared ahead around the turn and never looked back, finishing with a 69 and a three-shot margin of victory.

One of the privileges of winning at Augusta is being able to choose the Masters dinner menu when the champions gather before the following year’s event.

On both occasions he had the honor, in 2013 and 2015, and Watson selected the same basic menu: Caesar salad, chicken breast, green beans, mashed potato, mac and cheese, corn, confetti cake, and vanilla ice cream.

Watson followed up his Masters repeat with victory later in 2014 at the WGC-HSBC Champions in China, and by early 2015 he had risen to No.2 in the world rankings.

Bubba Watson was the highest-ranked golfer to represent his nation at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. He was one place out of the medals going into the final round, but slipped back to finish in a tie for eighth.

In the same year, he narrowly missed out on qualification for the Ryder Cup. Watson played in four editions of the biennial clash of Europe and the US’s finest golfers, and never ended up on the winning side.

However, for the 2016 match, US captain Davis Love III made him a non-playing vice- captain. Watson told the LIV Golf podcast Fairway to Heaven that not being picked to play was a “dark moment”. But he added that being an assistant captain to Love was “the greatest thing I’d done in golf so far”.

He said: “I was able to help 12 men to be a part of history and win the Ryder Cup… it was the greatest time I’d ever had.”

It’s no surprise that Watson so comprehensively and willingly embraced the team concept of LIV Golf, and the opportunity to give his time and expertise to the colleagues around him.

In the summer of 2022, Bubba Watson announced that he had accepted an invitation to join LIV Golf. He could not play for the rest of the year because of a torn meniscus, but assumed his full role as captain as RangeGoats GC made its LIV Golf debut at the start of the following season.

Watson was the driving force behind the team’s name. He explained that the Range element comes from the fact that he spent his early years practising on driving ranges near his home.

“It just goes back to the roots of who I am, where I come from,” said Watson, who now owns the Summit Range near his home – which he has renamed it as the Pensacola Golf Center.

As for Goats? Well, GOAT in sport can stand for Greatest Of All Time… but here it also means Golfers On A Team. And the team concept is key for Watson.

He said: “The main reason I came to LIV is that I want to help people. I love helping people. I’ve done stuff around the world, I’ve tried to give back as much as I can. I’ve built hospitals, water wells, done a lot of stuff.

“I love the game of golf, it gives me the avenue to help people, but then being on a team where I can put my arm round somebody or kick them in the butt… it just depends on their personality, what they need.”

It’s apparent that Watson also enjoys the commercial side of his role, and the challenge of growing both the RangeGoats GC brand and the game of golf in general.

While Bubba Watson was at the University of Georgia, he met his wife Angie. She was a professional basketball player who, like him, was 6ft 3in tall.

The couple were married in 2004 and have two adopted children. Their son joined the family just before Watson’s first Masters win in 2012, and their unit was completed when they adopted a daughter two years later – when Watson won the Masters again.

The family lives in Pensacola, where there are suggestions that Watson may run for mayor one day. He is the part-owner of a minor league baseball team, the Blue Wahoos, and is constantly keen to help fans get closer to the team – in the same way that he wants to raise the profile of, and engagement with, RangeGoats GC.

In 2012, Watson paid $110,000 at an auction for a General Lee car from the classic TV series The Dukes of Hazzard. A few years later, he had to replace the Confederate stars ’n’ bars on its roof with the US flag.

Watson has spoken with commendable honesty about the mental health challenges he has had to battle during his career. These include ADHD and anxiety, and Watson said: “I want to encourage people – men or women – to be able to talk about it and share.

“Sharing gets it off your chest, gets it off your mind, so you can be the person you want to be.”

In 2021 he published a book entitled Up and Down: Victories and Struggles in the Course of Life.

There is only one name you associate with Bubba Watson’s clubs, and that name is Ping. He has played with the brand’s equipment all his life – including when he used a special pink driver to win his first Green Jacket.

He favors the G430 LST driver and G430 Max three-wood, while his irons are from the Blueprint S range. Ping also supplies his Glide wedges, and his PLD Anser D prototype putter. If Ping made golf balls, he would no doubt use them; but instead he plays with the ever-popular Titleist Pro V1x.

Over the years, Bubba Watson has earned more than $48million by playing on the PGA Tour and he has also won four events on the European Tour. In his first three years with LIV Golf, he added nearly $8million to his net worth.

Watson also has several lucrative commercial partnerships. He signed a “lifetime deal” with Ping in 2020, while he is also sponsored by Nike, which supplies his golf shoes, and is a brand ambassador for clothing maker Linksoul.

Since 2011, Watson has worked in partnership with Richard Mille, a Swiss luxury watch maker. Over the years, the company has created several models especially for him – he was wearing one when he won his first Masters in 2012.

Bubba Watson admits he was ferociously committed to his sport, and highly competitive with it, in his younger days. Now, with a mature and rounded perspective on life, he’s fond of saying: “It’s just golf.”

He remembers those early days vividly, and said: “It’s not like a normal job where you clock out at 5, go home to your family, then clock back in at 8 in the morning. It lingers with you, you think about the bad shots…”

But now? When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said. “When I’m gone, when my kids are talking about their dad, if they have to say ‘Two-time Masters champion’ first, that means I’ve failed as a dad.

“I want my wife to say he was the best husband ever, I want my kids to say he was the best dad ever. That’s what I care about… that’s really what my whole focus is now.”