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Boo and Bubba aren't close friends. They don't hang out together at home or on the road. "Don't even have him in my cellphone," Boo says. They're buddies, though, and each knows where the other comes from and the road each took to get where he is. Last week at Oakmont was Weekley's first major championship, and the U.S. Open was the first time the two had played together in a Tour event. (Thanks, group-making USGA guys!) There wasn't much chitchat between them, and the only person Nobu talked to at all was his Japanese caddie, Yoshi Kazv, who wore bright white pants with the word tiger stenciled in large red letters down his left leg. (It's a Japanese entertainment company.) What Bubba and Boo had between them was comfort.
Bubba can be a goofball prankster in his off-course life. He described the practice rounds he has played with Tiger Woods. "I blast it by him every time," Watson said. "He talks about his wins. I talk about how far I hit it." But last week Bubba was nobody's fool. Waiting for the group's Friday 12:41 tee time, he took a page out of Tiger's book, making a study of the course conditions by viewing the tournament telecast. On the course he keenly watched the shots played by the golfers ahead of and behind him, and he had his caddie, Ted Scott, forecaddie on certain holes because the rough was like a black hole and he knew the volunteer spotters might struggle to find his tee shots, which follow no normal pattern in height, distance or direction.
Playing in only the second major of his career, Bubba, who has no swing coach or trainer or sports psychologist, was a shot off the lead after 36 holes. He was still in great position to win the championship through eight holes on Saturday, but then he made a triple on 9, where he chipped not once, not twice but three times. "I had two horrible lies," he said of his first two chips, one flubbed, the other rushed and skulled. He didn't sound anything like defeated, but the math was working against him and he wound up tying for fifth.
Bubba is five years younger than the 33-year-old Boo — and a lefthander with slender arms and bony hands that do not touch barbells. His prodigious length comes from the enormous extension in his swing. He has broad shoulders and long arms, which create an exceptionally wide arc. His downswing has more time than normal to build up speed, and the result is stunning. Swinging all out, which he seldom does, Watson can easily hit a ball 330 yards on the fly. On Friday at 17, a 313-yard par-4, he hit a little cut driver nearly hole-high. On the next hole, 484 yards and uphill, his drive, smack down the middle, left him with 100 yards to the flag.
