DUBLIN, Ohio — By winning the Masters in dramatic fashion earlier this spring, Bubba Watson certainly earned a moment to exhale.
Whether he actually got it despite taking an extended vacation from golf remains a bit of a mystery.
As
if winning his first major weren't enough of a life-changing
experience, it basically coincided with the 33-year old Watson and his
wife, Angie, going through the process of adopting an infant son.
Now, a guy who looks like a rock star is living like one — when he's not at home changing diapers.
"All
these things (were) going on in our life. Then we won a major
championship," Watson said Tuesday at the Memorial Tournament. "The kid
was more important. It took four years to process, some bad health, some
moving states, all these kind of things. There are a lot of positive
things -- nothing bad, a lot of positive — but it's just different
changes.
"Dealing with a major championship is a totally
different level. You dream of winning a major championship, but then
actually pulling it off, you don't know how to deal with it. I've never
dreamed that far. You don't think about what comes with it. People
actually know your name now, so it's a little different."
Watson
said he and his wife have been looking for a new home while trying to
sell two others and differing laws in their primary state of residence
and the state of the adoption have kept it from being finalized. With
all that swirling and the Masters victory causing his phone to ring off
the hook, he withdrew from the Players Championship and decided to watch
it on television with one eye while keeping the other on the family's
new baby monitor.
The world's No. 4 player and the winner of two
PGA events a year ago has played in only one tournament since he won
the Masters in early April. Watson arrived in the Columbus area Sunday
and played a nine-hole practice round early Tuesday at Muirfield Village
as part of his preparations for the first round of the Memorial on
Thursday.
"I took 2-1/2 weeks off exactly," Watson said. "Then I
hit balls a little bit, played a little bit. I've probably really put
in about three days of good, hard practice over the last month — not as
much as I wanted to.
"I'm just tired. It's a different tired than
we're used to, having a child. (There are) a lot of different things
going on. My mind works differently, as we know throughout the years, so
for me my mind is racing any time you hear noise, any time you hear
something.
"It's just different, but I got energized as soon as I got here."
Watson
has never had a problem with different. He's a big-hitting left-hander
who never took a formal golf lesson and used the same putter from the
time he was 8 years old until his second year as a professional. The
signature shot of the Masters, made from the trees on the second playoff
hole to help him save par, is the kind of shot he says he's always
made.
"I hit it into the woods a lot," he said.
Watson
owns and drives the original General Lee from the "Dukes of Hazzard,"
has his own quirky YouTube channel and is sponsoring a concert here in
the Columbus area Tuesday night called "Bubba's Bash" that features some
of his favorite artists and will benefit he and his wife's mission to
build a medical clinic in Kenya.
"I love listening to Christian rap," he said.
Catering
the concert is Waffle House, and that gives Watson another reason to
smile. He said he takes his hash browns "covered — in a lot of ketchup."
Watson's Twitter bio reads: "Christian. Husband. Daddy. Pro Golfer. Owner of General Lee 1. My style is #awesome."
Though
Watson said he got his long hair trimmed —" I got my hair did," he
joked — during his time away, he showed up at the Memorial unshaven. In a
blue-blood sport he's a man of the people; there are just more people
following him than ever before.
"I have a lot more friends than I
used to have," Watson said. "It's amazing to see the difference just by
winning one golf tournament, how much your life changes, in a positive
way. It's just different. It's something you never could imagine it
would go that way and be that wild."
His time away also included
receiving a key to the city both from Milton, Fla., where he went to
high school, and nearby Pensacola. Watson also threw out the first pitch
at a Pensacola Blue Wahoos minor-league baseball game and hosted a
private dinner for about 20 longtime friends. That dinner served as his
moment of reflection on winning the Masters.
"It was good to go
back and do that and be there with people who supported me through all
this time, people who thought (I could) actually pull the shot off and
win the green jacket," he said. "It was just about celebrating with them
and making sure they knew it was all for them and it wasn't just me
winning the jacket. It was them winning as well."
Watson
admitted he has been trying to knock off some rust the past several days
and will still have some to shake when he takes to the tee box
Thursday. He must have found a minute during his time away to check his
stats, because he said he hasn't finished lower than 18th in 2012 and
will use that as a benchmark. Though his head is still spinning, he
hopes he'll be seeing the ball well when the Memorial begins.
"When Sunday afternoon comes," he said, "I hope to have a chance to win a golf tournament."
