I can’t quite decide where I sit with Bubba Watson. He’s a phenomenon golfer and an amazing player on the golf course. But there’s a little bit of me that thinks I shouldn’t really like his approach to the game of golf. He’s never taken a golf lesson and from a golf coach’s perspective, that sacred religious everyone should take golf lessons surely. He also plays the game with such imagination, he never tries to hit a straight shot. And you see in his golf swing he’s got more foot work than a tennis player. He swings the golf club over the top, the ball goes over different which way but there’s something really appealing about the guy and the, the sense of fun and enjoyment he has on the golf course as well.
So we want to take a couple of things that are good about Bubba Watson’s game and avoid a couple of the other little inconsistencies that he has, so the colorful left-handed, left-handed player. I’m going to do this right handed for you. He swings it back that the front foot kicks and the knee kicks in. The club comes over the top. Every outs of my being looks at that says don’t do that Bubba, you can’t possibly hit the ball well from there. Then he throws the club outside the line and I start to cover my eyes when I’m watching the TV.
He drives it back across the golf ball. The thing sets off over the top of the crowds’ head, spins back round lands in the middle of the fairway and rolls 350 yards in the middle and the then that goes, yeah like so. The guy has got some game clearly. And is a Masters Champion to beat so he can clearly play the game. So what do we like? We like the way he shakes the ball. We like his approach to playing, playing the game with the sense of foot. We like his imagination, stands there, pitches every ball nicely in his head, not afraid to go and play it how he sees it. We don’t necessarily like the fact that he has so many moving parts, so many fundamentals that are quite nailed to the floor.
So when you’re practicing, don’t be afraid of experimenting with a few different parts of your game. Trying to change your technique, trying to look at different ways of playing the shot, don’t be afraid of visualizing different shots when you go around the golf course and play but in terms of making good solid fundamental swings, try and keep that front foot a little bit more stable in the backswing, we don’t really want to see that foot lifting up too much.
The consistency won’t work for most people. Likewise, through the ball the front foot needs to stay a little bit more planted if possible, your rare foot can be lifting up nice and fast but try and keep that front foot a little bit more planted. In the follow through, nice and balanced Bubba Watson often hits that and he is off somewhere, he is walking after it and he’s chasing it back down the fairway. The other thing that you’ve got to notice is you should always take golf lessons. Don’t listen to Bubba Watson. Everyone used to take a series of golf lessons at some point in their life.