Why we're watching over big Bubba
"Hey, this is Bubba," said the deep, Dixie voice on the other end of the phone. A last name was not necessary. If 27-year-old PGA Tour rookie Bubba Watson isn't already in one-name land with Tiger, Phil and Annika after his head-turning fourth-place finish in the Sony Open at Hawaii two weeks ago, he is at the check-in counter. His given name is Gerry, the "G" hard, the way the limber left-hander wallops his drives. But he has been Bubba since Day One. "[Football player] Bubba Smith was doing advertisements on the TV back then," said his father, Gerry. "I was at the time a baseball person. Bubba was about 22 or 23 inches long and weighed 9½ pounds. I said, 'Damn, I wanted a baseball player, not a 'Bubba.' "
Bubba of Bagdad (Florida, and no, it's not a typo, but a tiny former lumber-company town east of Pensacola) popped up in prime time from Oahu, his tee shots and his sideburns much longer than standard. He has had the style almost as long as his nickname. "Since I was 12," he said. "My mom [Molly] is from Tupelo, Miss., where Elvis is from, and she grew up in that era. She always liked sideburns."
Watson likes them, too, and they're not going anywhere. He's not one for change. His father has been his only golf instructor, this despite seldom breaking 100 himself before being sidelined with rheumatoid arthritis. "Bubba may ask me, 'Hey, come get me back to zero?' " says Gerry, a former construction worker. "When he was in college at Georgia, I'd drive up there and get him back to square one."
The father-son range summits are more pep talk than physics lesson. They keep things simple. In 2004, Bubba summed up his approach this way to a reporter: "I just go out there and bang it, hope I find it, and go bang it again." Bubba Version 2006 is no more technical, which is why he figures to fascinate the common fan, a folk hero in need only of more folks to notice.
An athletic kid, Watson played baseball until he was 13. "Bubba could throw a ball through a wall," according to Gerry, but he liked the succeed-or-fail mind-set of individual games. He learned to manuever shots hitting plastic golf balls around the family home as a boy. A fade around one side. A draw around the other. "And he'd play golf all through our house," Gerry said. "That was on cold and rainy days. Start in the living room, go through the hallway, into the bedrooms and back around. He'd hit real balls in the house, too. We trusted him."
The thing that might be the best predictor for Watson's future isn't the sonic booms he is hitting on tour but the friendly games he plays at home at Stonebrook Golf Club in Pace, Fla., where he and wife Angie, a former college and WNBA basketball player, now live. Watson will take on two-man teams, carrying just one club. "I'll change it up," he said, "sometimes a 7-iron, sometimes a 6-iron, sometimes a 5-iron. Just the one iron. I'll shoot around 70 to 75 all the time." That's what good hands and 225-yard full-bore 6-irons can do for a fellow.
Putting with the recommended implement in Hawaii two weeks ago, he holed 67 of 70 putts from 10 feet or less, a stat not many noticed in the shadow of the 336.3-yard driving average, which was higher than his Nationwide Tour-leading 334-yard average in 2005. During a final-round 65, he clocked a 398-yarder at No. 12, one of four that traveled longer than 360 yards, and hit 11 of 14 fairways.
He wants to win. He wants people to flock his way. "You know what, I've always had dreams of that," he said of playing to a crowd. "It's obvious Tiger's had the dream to be No. 1 in the world, the best ever. My dream has always been to impress the fans and give back to charities." He has been helping out the women's team at West Florida by sponsoring a tournament for three years.
His preshot routine is more Houdini than Rotella. "I haven't really mastered the tunnel vision," Watson admitted. Mark Calcavecchia, grizzled but not jaded, had to gather himself after watching Watson tee off when paired with him at the Sony. Watson has a clubhead speed of 126 miles per hour and a ball speed of 194, the latter about 10 mph greater than Woods', to cite a familiar power source. "It's me trying to excite fans by hitting it that hard," Watson said. "At the same time, it excites me if I pull it off."
Flying back to the mainland from Honolulu, Watson was giddy about his effort and the $244,800 check -- and that was before Vijay Singh turned around in his seat to talk to him. "He said: 'The way you hit it and the way you play, you need to talk about winning,' " Watson recalled. " 'Don't talk about keeping your card, talk about winning.' I didn't know what to say."
He knows what he'll do, though: Show up at this week's Buick Invitational and hit it hard, hit it like Bubba.
Bill Fields is a senior editor for Golf World magazine
