Bubba Watson in his Masters green jacket. DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP
Time doesn’t just fly. It flies like a golf ball crushed by Bubba Watson.
By the time the PGA Championship rolls around, it will have been five years since Tulsa last hosted a golf major. It may seem like yesterday that the best golfers in the world were congregating at Southern Hills, but it was more like 1,500 yesterdays ago.
The first major of 2012 should have whetted Tulsa’s appetite for another major.
-- The Masters had something the BCS doesn’t (a playoff).
-- The Masters had a classic oops by a gifted golfer (Phil Mickelson) who can be his own worst enemy. Mickelson triple-bogeyed a par 3 hole early in his final round. If he makes par on that hole, he finishes one shot ahead of the field and Bubbas are still just people who buy “Larry the Cable Guy” tickets.
-- The Masters had a blaze-of-glory finish by Tulsa resident Bo Van Pelt, who tied a final-day Masters record by shooting a 64. The former Oklahoma State golfer eagled No. 13 and, three holes later, made a hole-in-one. At that moment, he must have felt like the bishop who crafted a charmed round in “Caddyshack.” A monsoon could have blown in and Van Pelt still would have found a way to finish his round.
-- And the Masters had an interesting champion: the first Bubba ever to win a major. Past majors champs have included an Angel, a Tiger, a Walrus and even a Fuzzy, but this was indeed the first Bubba (not counting John Daly, who is a Bubba in every way except the name on his birth certificate).
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, you (Bubba) might be a redneck if you try to cut the sleeves off of your green jacket.
Bubba, who began his college golf career at Faulkner State Community College in Alabama, won’t take offense to the redneck reference.
He has played the “I’m-a-redneck” card when a reporter’s question includes a word (“glean”) that isn’t in his vocabulary.
He “hearts” tractors and once said so during a John Deere Classic press conference.
After the 2011 French Open, he became public enemy No. 1 in France when he criticized tournament security and referred to the Arc de Triomphe as “an arch in the middle of the road” and the Palace of Versailles as “that castle next to where I am staying.”
That guy -- yes, that guy -- just won the prim and proper Masters.
Bottom line? Fun stuff happened in Augusta. So, it’s time to put Tulsa back on the clock. The city needs another major before we forget what happened in the last one. Or did we forget already? Tiger Woods won the 2007 PGA Championship in sweltering heat. But do you remember who finished second (Woody Austin) or third (Ernie Els)?
A lot can change in five years. In fact, a lot has changed since 2007. One big change is “drive for show, putt for dough” is no longer a slogan that prevents Bubba from taking home oversized checks.
While at the 2007 U.S. Open, Watson said he blasts his tee shots past Woods’ drives when they play practice rounds together. Asked if that generates any conversation, Watson said, “He always talks about his wins, and I always talk about how far I hit it.”
Watson is still a big hitter. He leads the PGA Tour in driving distance (313.1 average). But he isn’t the guy on the long drive circuit who can hit it a mile and gets snickered at by “real” pros. He became a first-time winner on the PGA Tour in June of 2010 and he has won four times since.
Big paydays permitted Watson to realize a Bubba’s dream.
During a Jan. 24, 2010, press conference at the Bob Hope Classic, a reporter asked Bubba what he would do if he won. He said he would buy himself a General Lee car from the “Dukes of Hazzard” television series.
“I’ve loved that show forever,” he said at a press conference this year. “My wife, at the time we met, she knew that I loved that car and I wanted one. We made a deal back then that if I ever won a golf tournament, she would let me get one. So I won three, and I finally found one I liked.”
One of the actual General Lee cars from the show was put up for auction and Bubba placed a winning bid of $110,000. He used it to transport himself to the Phoenix Open this year. Said Watson, “I get to drive it around and blow the horn every once in a while.”
Bubba shot consecutive 79s and didn’t make the cut at the 2007 PGA Championship in Tulsa.
Now he drives for show in his famous car and drives for dough on golf courses. I want to see him and all of his golfing buddies in Tulsa sooner rather than later.
