Sponsored by:
Watson doesn't like to draw the ball, so right hole positions are difficult for him. Strong winds are also a problem because he hits the ball so high. Another issue for him is how to handle the reins. On Thursday he played the uphill, 477-yard 9th hole with a four-iron off the tee and a five-iron in. The next day he hit driver followed by a wedge. Both days he made bogey. But his toughest challenge is patience, a topic he discusses on the course with his caddie and off the course with his wife, Angie, a former pro basketball player whom he met in college, at Georgia. "I have no patience, and I hate waiting," Watson said, which made his 36-hole position even more surprising, given that the opening rounds each took close to six hours.
Having Boo around helped. Putting his peg in the ground after a long wait on a back-nine tee box, Weekley said, "Play well," as if the round were starting all over again. Bubba, unshaven and loose, laughed.
It's easy to imagine Bubba Watson winning at Augusta, where his massive fade shot would play like a righthander's draw and make all the par-5s easily reachable. Bubba is now ranked 77th in the world, and he may get to Augusta for the first time next year. Boo Weekley, courtesy of his win at Hilton Head in April, is already in the 2008 Masters. At Oakmont, where he finished 26th, he was the player in the threesome with a classic U.S. Open game — or British Open game, for that matter. Weekley plays a lot like Scott Verplank, except he's longer with every club and not as deadly from 10 feet. His shots are low and straight, and there's no reason that he shouldn't contend at Carnoustie next month.
Another son of the South, Sam Snead, won the Open on his first trip to St. Andrews, when he came in by train, looked at the links and said, "What's that over there? Looks like an old, abandoned golf course." Boo said last week, "I don't like wearing golf shoes, and I don't like wearing collared shirts." If he gets in contention, the working-class Scots — the world's best golf fans — will love him.
Masuda liked Boo's game. He could relate to it. But Bubba's game left him in a trance. "No Japanese golfer has ever hit the ball like that," Masuda said when the first two rounds were over. "It makes me want to go home and not come back until I improve."
He was laughing as he talked, almost as if he had the giggles. He seemed happy to be done, happy to be part of a USGA social experiment. You might have thought he'd be upset because he had just made a triple bogey on his last hole on Friday, with a drive in the rough that finished at least 100 yards behind Bubba's ball. All he had needed was a par on the last to make the cut on the number, 10 over par. Anyway, if he was frustrated, he didn't show it. Maybe it's a Japanese thing.
