{"id":1995,"date":"2018-06-25T16:54:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T16:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebureaugh.com\/addons\/thegolferonline.com\/golfer\/?p=1995"},"modified":"2018-06-25T16:54:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T16:54:17","slug":"will-bubba-watson-be-a-hall-of-famer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/blog\/2018\/06\/25\/will-bubba-watson-be-a-hall-of-famer\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Bubba Watson be a Hall of Famer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CROMWELL, Conn. \u2014 Bubba Watson<\/a> keeps adding his name to the history book. One day it could be in the World Golf Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Sunday at the Travelers Championship, Watson picked up the 12th victory of his career, which includes two Masters titles and a World Golf Championship. He once joked about retiring after 10 wins, but with three PGA Tour victories this season, the 39-year-old is showing no signs of slowing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing ride,\u201d Watson said following a final-round seven-under 63 to win by three over Stewart Cink<\/a>, Beau Hossler, J.B. Holmes<\/a> and Paul Casey<\/a> after starting the final round six strokes back of Casey. \u201cMy whole career, but this year has been outstanding. After last year, who knows what to expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few would have predicted a turnaround like this.<\/p>\n

Last year, Watson made a dubious change in golf balls, going from Titleist to Volvik, and battled undisclosed health issues, losing 20 pounds in the process. His results suffered, too. Watson registered just three top-10 finishes and missed more cuts (seven) than he had in nearly a decade. His World Ranking also plummeted as he dropped outside the top 50 and eventually to 117th earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Then came the Genesis Open. Healthy and back to playing his previous golf ball, Watson ended a two-year winless drought and joined Ben Hogan as the only players to have won three times at Riviera and twice at Augusta National.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s victory was at another of Watson\u2019s old favorites: TPC River Highlands. With the win, Watson moved alongside one more legend, Billy Casper, as the only player to hoist the trophy at least three times at the PGA Tour\u2019s Connecticut stop. That\u2019s more than Arnold Palmer and Phil Mickelson, who each won the tournament twice. It\u2019s also more than Sam Snead and Lee Trevino, who won it just once.<\/p>\n

With three wins in 2018, Watson also has more victories than anyone else on tour this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about a victory today,\u201d Watson said. \u201cI was just playing golf and trying to stay focused and committed so I could get momentum and confidence going into the next tournaments coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ended up on top again anyway. But this one was different.<\/p>\n

At Riviera, Watson had a one-shot lead going into the last day and seized control with two clutch par putts before holing a bunker shot in the middle of the back nine then hanging on to win by two.<\/p>\n

In his second win, at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas, Watson blew out Kevin Kisner<\/a>, 7 and 6, in the 18-hole final.<\/p>\n

At the Travelers, Watson rallied from six back at the start of the day thanks to six birdies over his final 10 holes, including one on 18 after nearly jarring a 71-yard wedge shot for eagle. It was also his second 63 of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s victory was at another of Watson\u2019s old favorites: TPC River Highlands. With the win, Watson moved alongside one more legend, Billy Casper, as the only player to hoist the trophy at least three times at the PGA Tour\u2019s Connecticut stop. That\u2019s more than Arnold Palmer and Phil Mickelson, who each won the tournament twice. It\u2019s also more than Sam Snead and Lee Trevino, who won it just once.<\/p>\n

With three wins in 2018, Watson also has more victories than anyone else on tour this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about a victory today,\u201d Watson said. \u201cI was just playing golf and trying to stay focused and committed so I could get momentum and confidence going into the next tournaments coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: The clubs Bubba Watson used to win the Travelers Championship<\/a><\/p>\n

He ended up on top again anyway. But this one was different.<\/p>\n

At Riviera, Watson had a one-shot lead going into the last day and seized control with two clutch par putts before holing a bunker shot in the middle of the back nine then hanging on to win by two.<\/p>\n

In his second win, at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas, Watson blew out Kevin Kisner<\/a>, 7 and 6, in the 18-hole final.<\/p>\n

At the Travelers, Watson rallied from six back at the start of the day thanks to six birdies over his final 10 holes, including one on 18 after nearly jarring a 71-yard wedge shot for eagle. It was also his second 63 of the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CROMWELL, Conn. \u2014 Bubba Watson keeps adding his name to the history book. One day it could be in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Sunday at the Travelers Championship, Watson picked up the 12th victory of his career, which includes two Masters titles and a World Golf Championship. He once joked about retiring after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-competitions","8":"category-european-golf","9":"category-featured"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegolferonline.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}