In the end it was the guy who didn’t want to play then decided he wanted in who prevailed Sunday at the Hero World Challenge.
Bubba Watson is the champion and $1 million winner who almost wasn’t but is.
Watson slopped up the 72nd hole with a bogey but still finished at 25-under at Albany in the Bahamas and that was good enough for a four-shot victory in the tournament hosted by Tiger Woods.
Watson at first declined to play then re-entered when Jason Day withdrew from the field. Watson was able to get passports for both his adopted children.
“I didn’t want a bogey this weekend,” Watson said after he hit a sloppy wedge that missed the green then hit a chubby chip that didn’t make it to the green. He managed to hole a seven-foot putt for bogey and the win. And it was his putter that he credited.
“Putting,” Watson said of his key to victory in the 18-man event. “I thank the engineers at PING.”
It wasn’t a fair fight on the layout that featured five par fives, giving Watson 20 chances for easy birdies. He played those holes 13-under par for the week.
Before the tournament started he told caddie Teddy Scott: “I don’t know if I can play this course. It’s really, really hard.”
Couldn’t have been that hard because Watson’s bogey cost him a chance to tie Jordan Spieth’s tournament record of 26-under. Patrick Reed holed a 14-foot birdie putt at the 72nd hole to get to 22-under and took solo second.
Rickie Fowler’s 64 jumped him to 21-under and third by himself. Defending champ Spieth shot 67 and finished fourth by himself at 20-under.
Fourteen of the 18 players shot 12-under par or better so it wasn’t as tough as Watson tried to convince everyone early in the week.
This was the last individual event of the PGA Tour’s 2015 calendar season.
