Bubba Watson Gets Creative On His Way to a 62 at WGC-Cadillac Championship

It was like golf’s version of an acid trip on Friday when Bubba Watson carded a 62 in the second round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship on the TPC Blue Monster Course at Doral, but even though the number was surprising, the methods were decisively Bubba. He played 60-yard cuts and hung snap hooks perilously over the water only to have them lock onto the pin like a Patriot missile. Bubba Watson simply sees the game differently.

Golf is meant to be polite–even courteous, and Bubba Watson’s personality reflects that wholeheartedly, but his game most certainly does not. It’s both creative and brutish, which makes it slightly inconsistent, but when it’s good–my goodness is it good.

For that reason, the 33-year old tour-veteran is often misunderstood. Golf is a game with an established social structure, and Watson’s game doesn’t synchronize with it’s criterion.

That’s not to say that people don’t like Bubba Watson, because that couldn’t be further from the truth, but watching Bubba mash his way around the course causes a great deal of confusion. Yesterday, his playing partner Justin Rose, who fired a 64 of his own, was admittedly in awe of the way Bubba managed the Monster.

We’ve all been programmed to move from point to point in straight lines, but Bubba Watson apparently didn’t get evolution’s memo. He’s as close to an artist as golf has today, and most of his best golf could only be described as abstract.

On the sixth hole, Watson lost his tee shot to the left behind a palm tree and played two extra clubs so that he could slice the ball almost 20 yards back into a hook wind. Picasso would have been befuddled.

It demonstrated the sort of creativity that nobody could dream of stifling. It was an amuse-bouche of Bubba.

Sure, Bubba Watson is a big-hitter, but while distances off the tee are continuing to increase, there’s nobody out there who can shape the ball like Bubba. He has the unique ability to see things that nobody else can see, and even if they do, they certainly don’t have the stones to try.

He has a fresh take on an age-old game that makes a 62 that much more extraordinary, and it’s wildly entertaining. But, with a name like Bubba, it’s gotta be good.