Bubba Watson, one of golf’s famously self-taught savants, claims he’s never taken a lesson.
“I never will take a lesson,” he once told The Wall Street Journal. “If I start playing bad golf, I’ll just have to find me a new job.”
Well, Watson, 41, seems to have had a change of heart. Watson was seen working with Claude Harmon III, son of Butch and instructor to Brooks Koepka, on the practice putting green after his third round of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational on Saturday at TPC Southwind.
“I’m really good friends with Claude and Brooks and them, so my manager and Claude are really good friends. So my manager (Jens Beck) said, ‘Hey, you should definitely talk to him.’ And all it is is it’s about, ‘Hey, man, do you see anything that me and Teddy are missing?’ ” Watson explained. “There’s no range stuff, if that makes sense. I know people don’t understand that. I’m trying to score better. I feel like my physical part is there and how do you score better. That’s why I asked him.
“I call him my life coach is what I call him.”
Sounds like it is simply a question of semantics. Watson finally has been seeking out a second set of eyes.
“He’s the one that said he saw something with putting, that I need to get back to my – when I first started golf, I always put my weight on my front foot, closed my stance, was over the ball more. Back in the old days. And so that’s what he’s thrown into the mix so far,” Watson said.
Watson shot 4-under 66 on Sunday, his best round of the week, including an outward 5-under 30, with four birdies in a row beginning at No. 6.
“I know when I ever do see (Claude) again, he’s definitely going to say, ‘See how good you putted?’ So I’m definitely going to hear that. But yeah, that’s it really. It’s nothing golf swing, I just want to see if there’s something I’m missing. I call him my scoring coach, my cheerleader, my life coach. I call him everything but a swing coach because I know how to hook it and I know how to cut it, so it’s not like I’m needing help that way, if that makes sense.”
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