Bubba Watsons Masters Shot – The Autopsy

I’ve been at the beach for a few days, so forgive me if I’m way behind the times on this one – has anyone seen this picture depicting Bubba Watson’s shot on #10 (second playoff hole)?

No biggie, really.

Two things come to mind:
1) I watched roughly 316 hours of Masters coverage this year and still had no idea how ridiculous this shot was. During live action we simply saw Bubba staring down the usual tunnel of spectators, and once again I could not help but think “those people are either insane or really looking for an excuse to have jaw replacement surgery”. The shot is hit, it looks awesome, and the announcers begin to spout their usual incredulous bluster. Perhaps I’m too immune to guys like Roger Maltbie’s insistence that if you “gave someone 100 tries to make that shot they’d only be successful 4 times” in these instances. . . I’m sure they said all they could to explain to me how incredible Bubba’s shot was, but somehow I didn’t grasp the concept. I know Augusta National won’t allow blimps, but how about cranking up one of those fancy hole graphics and pointing out the actual angles involved here?

2) Sooo, that shot was freaking incredible, right? Hooking a gap wedge almost 90 degrees, what?! Oh, also, it’s the second hole of a sudden-death playoff at the Masters, sir. Good grief, what a badass. How many Augusta National members have since snuck out to the 10th hole to try and pull that shot off, or at least sent their butlers to try it and report back? “I don’t have a gap wedge, Niles, so take this pitching wedge, turn it upside down, choke up 1 inch, and let me know how it goes – chop chop!” It will be interesting to see if we ever get treated to a Nick Faldo re-enactment of the shot during next year’s coverage, not sure how the greenjackets will feel about that one. And poor Oosthuizen – we’ve all been there in match play – when he watched that shot skid onto the green he must have muttered one of the all-time ‘f#*% me’s of our generation.