Bubba: 'That was the best shot I've ever hit at Augusta'

Ten years ago Bubba Watson hit one of the greatest shots at Augusta National to edge out Louis Oosthuizen in a play-off for the Green Jacket. This year, at the 18th hole on day two, he eclipsed that. 

From a particularly strange lie the left-hander ballooned a wedge from the pine straw down the right to kick-in distance.

"Not that you want to know but that was the best shot I've ever hit at Augusta National, that one right there. My ball was two inches in the air. It was like a piece of a branch had fell on the ground and my ball was sitting on top of it, and then two leaves behind it I couldn't move, and then two leaves touching that I couldn't move, so I had a gap way up in the trees. I was, like, 'I'm going to hit wedge as hard as I can.' Then it went to a foot, so worked out."

There was a slight concern over a rules infringement and, with the cut a couple of shots away, Watson's tournament could have come to a quick end but he managed to avoid moving anything other than his way up the leaderboard.

"The rules official was there. It's all in a nest, right? When I was over it, it gusted, and a leaf about four feet away blows right over top of it. Now I can't even see the ball. He was right over my shoulder here. I said, 'the ball didn't move, but the leaf covered it'. Then I removed the leaf very carefully. I could have easily double-bogeyed it with that lie and the shot I tried to play. Luckily I got a birdie somehow.

"If I hit a pitching wedge as hard as I can straight up, I thought I could hit that gap. I wasn't looking at the green. It went straight up, and then a gust from the Gods flew. It was a pitching wedge from 138 as high as I could hit it, and somehow it went a foot from the hole. They all said, 'good shot,' the guys I was playing with. I said, 'where did it go?'"

As for that wonder recovery in 2012 Watson was actually quite close to where that shot was played from.

"It's a 10-year-old shot. It's one of those shots that changed my life forever. Situation wise, the hook was better, but I'm just saying physical golf shot? Nobody in the world would have tried that shot (on 18) that I tried. We can sit here and they can tell me they would try it but I don't believe (they) could have pulled it off."

Bubba Watson makes magic from the pine straw at #TheMasters ... again. pic.twitter.com/uaiGs5fix5

— Golf Central (@GolfCentral) April 8, 2022