‘Gosh, half the year I think about it’: Bubba is dreaming about the Masters hat-trick

Bubba Watson would be one year away from emulating Jack Nicklaus’ greatest triumph if he won his third Green Jacket in 2024.

At 45, Watson is approaching the age where a major win is unlikely but not impossible, as the Golden Bear showed at the Masters in 1986 at the age of 46.

If you hole the winning putt twice at Augusta National, you are evidently at one with the place. Watson loves the hallowed Georgia turf and doesn’t believe for a second that he isn’t capable of becoming just the ninth person to win the Masters at least three times.

Auld Lang Syne has barely finished and Jools Holland hasn’t got in bed by the time golf fans in the UK start looking ahead to the Masters and, minus the tedious, jazz-riddled tradition, Watson is no different.

“It’s funny. Around January 1, right at the start of the new year, ESPN starts showing the Masters commercials. And that’s where it starts, all the thoughts, all the things, you start building up to it,” he told NCG.

“Gosh, half the year I think about it, because I want to win, we all want to win. We want to win it again. To win it twice is a dream come true, but you know, there is that chance because I want to win it again because I believe in my game and I believe in the course.

“I trust the course and I love the course. Gosh, to win it three times, there’s only a handful of people to win it three times. I know there’s only a handful who’ve won it twice, but it gets even less and less as you go. Especially at this age, thinking about what Jack Nicklaus did at 46, I’m 45.

“You have those thoughts that you might be able to pull it off, that’s where the thoughts go. You know it’s been done before, and you want to try to emulate that.”

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Bubba Watson at the Masters: ‘I want to win, we all want to win. We want to win it again’

It is 10 years since the experienced American held off Masters rookie Jordan Spieth who was aiming for his first major title at just 20 years old.

Spieth would get his Green Jacket a year later and was probably all the better for the experience of biting at Watson’s ankles and posing a serious threat on an intriguing Sunday afternoon in 2014.

Having started the day equal on 5-under-par, with Swede Jonas Blixt one behind, Spieth burst after the bunny with birdies on holes 2 and 4, building a two-shot cushion.

“I’ve done this before, I know what the pressure’s like,” Watson kept telling himself as they approached the turn where the pendulum swung in the man from Bagdad’s favour.

Watson made birdies on holes 8 and 9, while Spieth stumbled to bogeys. Watson transformed from the hunter into the hunted and kept his young foe at arm’s length for the rest of the day.

He only played the back nine in level-par, but this was enough. The crowd noise, or lack of it, suggested no one was coming, so all Watson needed was the finish line.

“I know what it’s going to feel like, he doesn’t. I’m not saying he’s not a good golfer at that moment, he just doesn’t know the experience of that course. And he won the very next year,” Watson continued.

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“It’s a different mindset in 2014, I made a birdie on 13 and then I just parred out because I was three up. I wasn’t chasing birdies, I wasn’t chasing anybody. Nobody had a roar, nobody’s birdied, nobody’s moved up.

“That’s what I was telling myself. Nobody’s making birdie and you’ve still got a three-shot lead. Just make a par, just do this, just do that. I was only focused on trying to not make a mistake instead of chasing down somebody. It was two different years: one I was chasing and one I was just hanging on.”

Watson was four shots behind Louis Oosthuizen in the early stages of the 2012 Masters after the South African made an incredible albatross on the par-5 2nd hole.

He eventually beat Oosthuizen in a playoff, completing the chase in fine style. Two years later, he put away the Masters in a less tense fashion.

As with his first triumph down Magnolia Lane, the emotion spilt from his body. Watson etched himself in Masters folklore and entered a new realm of golf royalty with his second major championship.

But aside from the sport, family is most important to Watson. He and his wife Angie adopted their son Caleb shortly before he won the Masters in 2012.

Caleb couldn’t leave their Florida home at that point due to the early stage of the adoption process.

In 2014, Caleb was able to walk on to the 18th green and greet his father in what was an extremely poignant moment in Watson’s career.

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