He has a twang, a born-again story and the (actual) Dukes of Hazzard car, General Lee. He hits the ball farther in one shot than you and me hit it in two. He doesn’t know a thing about changing a diaper, which is why he was hoping the green jacket might buy him some time with Angie.
Only Bubba Watson would sit in his plastic folding chair during the Masters awards ceremony Sunday evening and wonder what kind of helicopter was flying overhead.
Only Bubba Watson would use a green jacket to negotiate a No-Change-Diapers treaty with his wife about their just-adopted newborn son.
Only Bubba Watson would hit a 52-degree gap wedge that ducked under 18-foot-high tree branches, instantly gained altitude, hooked 40 yards, parachuted onto the green of the second playoff hole from 135 yards away, squirted toward the flagstick, settled exhausted about 15 feet away — and later call the tournament-winning shot “pretty easy.”
Your 2012 Masters champion is a nut job, but in a good way. He’s a human faucet. He cried enough on Sunday night to create his own rain forest.
You’d cry too if you won the lottery twice in three weeks. That’s what happened to the 33-year-old Watson, who welcomed little Caleb to his and wife Angie’s life in late March and then added a bouncing, 44-long green jacket to the family as the sun began to dip below the Georgia pines early Sunday night.
“I’ve never had a dream go this far, so I can’t say it’s a dream come true,” said Watson.
Trust us, it is.
A guy who has never taken a golf lesson, but is an expert at life lessons, outlasted Louis Oosthuizen in a two-hole playoff. He did it — well, nobody is exactly sure how he did it because almost nobody on the planet could hit that same shot. Seriously, a gap wedge from the trees and pine straw off the No. 10 fairway that somehow plops onto the green? With the entire golf world watching? And a first major championship hanging by its fingernails?
Bubba Watson might be golf’s version of Dick Vermeil — someone who seems to cry at the drop of a hat. But the Bagdad, Fla. native by all accounts is an emotional person who tells it like it is.
The old Bubba would have hyperventilated himself silly. He would have cracked like cement. But the new and much improved Watson calmed his nerves long enough to grip and rip himself into Masters history.
Here are the Bubba firsts: First Player To Use A Pink Driver To Win Here … First Player To Have Appeared In A Music Video Wearing Bib Overalls To Win Here … First Player To Think “Y’all Are Going To Forget About Me Tomorrow” To Win Here.
No one is going to forget this guy, this final round or this tournament. It’s impossible to suffer that kind of memory loss.
Tim Tebow already Tweeted about Bubba. He’s a trending phenom. With one audacious swing he went from borderline golf star to first-name-only status.
“You could tell something big was coming,” said one of his agency reps, Johan Elliott, describing Watson’s mood during Masters week. “He’s starting to realize that he is one of the best.”
Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com.
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