Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Has ‘Bubba golf’ got the legs for world domination?
Inspired by Bubba Watson’s brilliance, beautifully encapsulated in that wedge from the pine needles on Augusta’s feared 10th hole en route to winning the Masters on Sunday, I took to the range for a good old clout of the golf ball rather than worrying about a textbook swing.
Ugly noise. Ball darts off right. Left-handed kid receiving a lesson two bays away, who when asked who his favourite player was replies “Bubba Watson”, hits it better with the same club (7 iron).
Try again. Legs and body sway violently. My wrists, better suited for short game artistry (well, escaping from behind trees and the like), bend like rubber while my head is about as stationary as a last-day Masters crowd galloping up the side of the fairway to glimpse a view of the winning putt.
The result of my second shot, or the next 168 balls I hit, is irrelevant. The point is that the unorthodox genius of Watson is unrivalled in the world of golf. Long may it continue.
Woods wins at last but is Tiger “back” this time round?
“That was a huge win for Tiger Woods today. Our game just got a whole lot more interesting,” scribed world number 11 Dustin Johnson on Twitter on Sunday after his fellow American dominated the field at Bay Hill to clinch the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
This theme is already being discussed just hours after former world number one Woods won his first PGA Tour event since September 2009 after a much publicised fall from grace towards the end of that year and at the beginning of 2010.
