Bubba Watson's view to victory seems clear

Bubba Watson doesn’t drink alcohol. Never has. But he understands a hangover when he feels it.

“Obviously I was going to hang over,” the 2012 Masters champion said of the intervening two years. “Never been drunk before, but a hangover from the green jacket. It’s going to take me some time. You know, I do everything my way. I learned the game my way. I figured it out my way. So it just takes me a little bit longer with the mental focus and drive to get back to where I am today.”

Watson will start the third round at Augusta National three shots clear of his nearest pursuer. With a five-birdie binge on the second nine despite gusting winds that had patrons’ hats and players’ scores blowing all over the place, Watson raced to the top of the board and eliminated a slew of pre-tournament favorites outside the 10-shot rule.

The ones left are looking up at his green-jacketed coattails.

“If you were to script it, you would rather it be somebody else than a major or a Masters champion up there,” said Justin Rose, the U.S. Open champion sitting nine shots in Bubba’s wake.

Bubba Watson with a less cluttered mind is a very dangerous thing. He’s a bit of a golfing savant, shaping shots and seeing opportunities the way few (if any) others can. And when he’s hitting greens and making putts, he’s hard to catch. He shot a pair of 64s on the weekend to win at Riviera already this season to prove he’d awakened from whatever post-Masters fog he’d been lost in.

“How many green jackets you got?” Watson asked. “If you had one, you would celebrate it for a year or two.”

Watson had fatherhood and stardom thrust upon him at the same time in 2012. Two weeks after adopting his son, Caleb, he won the Masters in a playoff over Louis Oosthuizen.

It was a lot for the kid from Bagdad, Fla., to deal with.

“You’ve got to think about where I’ve come from,” he said. “My mom having two jobs to pay for my golf. My dad working in construction. And when you think about that and where I am in my career and where I am in my family – my young family – you’re thinking about how great (winning the Masters) was. Besides the Lord, marrying my wife and having our child, it’s right there, it’s fourth or fifth on the list.”

When Watson returned to Augusta last year, the stuff that comes with being defending champion almost seemed like a burden. He had to sign 10,000 flags for sponsors. He was a fixture in interview rooms. He was the guy with the spotlight on him.

“So much media attention is on the defending champion,” he said. “You know, you’re asked all these questions. Can you defend? How are you going to play? How are you going to do this? You have to give up the green jacket. You have to give it back to them, so there’s a lot of things going on when you’re defending champion.

“For me, I didn’t know how to handle it the best way, and so I didn’t play my best golf last year. But you know, this year I come in here with no media attention, just out there practicing. I changed my routine a little bit, played nine holes a day starting on Monday and just tried to save energy as much as I can. So, yeah, it was very different from last year to this year.”

Simple is always better for Bubba. Even his strategy is as fundamental as it comes.

“It’s not science here,” he said. “It’s try to hit the greens, and if you’re hitting the greens that means you’re obviously hitting your tee shots well. … So that’s really all I was doing and that’s what I’ve done the last two days, and it’s worked out so far.”

When he won in 2012, Watson rallied Sunday with four consecutive birdies on Nos. 13 through 16. He added the 12th to the string on Friday, lighting up the roars and turning a tight tournament into a relative romp.

He stuck a 9-iron to 3 feet on No. 12. He two-putted for birdie on No. 13. He drained a sweeping 40-foot bomb on No. 14. He chipped back to 4 feet on No. 15. Then he came within a foot of acing the par-3 16th with an absurd 186-yard 9-iron that landed softly and curled dutifully toward the hole.

“It’s one of those things, every guy in the field has had that stretch before, playing with their buddies or playing in a tournament,” Watson said. “So it’s not that big a deal when we think about it. But at the Masters, it makes it a big deal.”

With a little cushion, the field has to rely on a little help from Watson to bring it back or at least stall on Saturday. He’s only posted two bogeys all week – when he missed the 9th and 18th greens Friday and missed 4-footers on both of them.

“It can only take one or two shots around the turn there, and the hole can start looking awfully small and those lakes can start to look awfully big,” Rose said. “That’s just the way it is. We saw it with Greg Norman in ’96. It’s that kind of golf course and that’s why it’s so important to keep yourself in touch and that’s why they have a 10-shot rule here just because that’s the way the course plays.”

In 2012, Watson never led outright until the second hole of the playoff. Now he’s got to hold off everyone for two days.

“One of the hardest things in sport is to have a lead in a PGA Tour event, especially the Masters,” said Ted Scott, Watson’s caddie. “But it’s just because of all the distractions, so you’ve just got to focus on golf. That’s what Bubba is good at. Forget all the other stuff.”

If Bubba sticks to what he’s good at and stays out of the fog, good luck keeping up.