No longer is there a need to read between the lines.
Fan favourite Bubba Watson, often and charitably described as entertainingly unpredictable, mercurial and fickle, has been laid bare by his own tongue.
Despite playing the most impressive weekend in three decades at the PGA Tour event in Los Angeles, Watson again was caught by television microphones complaining about the gallery, criticising his caddie and grousing his way around Riviera Country Club while posting consecutive rounds of 64.
What a combination: winning and whingeing. The act has grown thin in some quarters, where Watson this week has been called out for being petulant, thin-skinned and ungrateful.
That characterisation hardly comes as news for those who have followed the game from inside the ropes, where Watson often has as many moods swings as golf swings.
Publicly, though, it reinforced the belief that, while Watson is No 12 in the world ranking, he is a distant first as far as having the game’s most complex personality.
Reminder: this is a player described by television analyst David Feherty as “jumpier than a box of frogs” and “nuttier than squirrel poop”.
Watson is as flighty as his booming drives, which can land just about anywhere.
He can be petty and petulant, generous and gregarious. Sometimes in the span of five minutes.
Watson carries 14 clubs and at least as many insecurities. He is deeply religious, does not drink, supports several charities, has never used a swing coach, and claims that he is an anti-celebrity.
Yet he drives notoriously flashy cars and is acutely aware of what others are writing, saying and thinking.
He refers to himself in the third person. He has an adopted son. He bought Tiger Woods’s former home in Orlando. Press the right button and he openly weeps.
It takes a yardage book, a caddie and an on-board GPS system to track his contradictions. From famously blue-collar origins, something akin to an inferiority complex occasionally bubbles over.
When he was a complete unknown, in college, he played an informal practice round with Phil Mickelson.
Legend has it, Watson talked trash the entire round, leaving Mickelson with a look on his face that could best be described as: “And who are you, exactly?”
More than a decade and five PGA Tour wins later, the question endures.
selling@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @SprtNationalUAE
