Augusta, GA
A Watson won the Masters, but nothing about golf seems elementary right now.
Bubba Watson reached deep into his bag of trick shots and pulled off an incredible hooking wedge shot into the 10th green on the second hole of a playoff with Louis Oosthuizen.
The shot from the trees and off the pine straw led to a par and won Watson his first major and a green jacket. It also set off a number of questions that will take months and three more majors to answer.
Can Watson win another major? He's always had talent but also a bit flaky and never the best under pressure. But he sure handled the pressure Sunday at Augusta National and should be full of confidence after breaking through to win a major.
While Watson was able to take his name off the list of good players never to have won a major, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood were not. Neither was Sergio Garcia.
Westwood gave it a pretty good run though and tied for third at 8-under-par after a closing 68. Donald on the other hand was a non-factor, finishing tied for 32nd at 3-over. The world No. 1 hardly looked like the top-ranked golfer in the world, opening 75-73-75 before salvaging Sunday with a 68.
Will Donald or Westwood ever break through? You would think so given how talented they are but Westwood will need to have one of his better putting weeks and Donald will have to find a way to bring his A game to the big-time events.
As for Garcia, there just seems to be too much damage done mentally after a number of close calls as he readily admitted he isn't talented enough to win a major this week at Augusta.
That may have been frustration talking after a 75 on Saturday and he did finish tied for 12th at 2-under, but it's hard to consider a guy a major threat when even he doesn't feel he has the game to pull it off.
Phil Mickelson has the game to pull it off at Augusta, he's done so three times in his career, but he gave away a shot at a fourth green jacket Sunday on the fourth hole.
A triple-bogey at the tough par-3 had Mickelson in recovery mode the rest of the round and he was never able to fully recover, eventually finishing tied for third at 8-under, two shots out of the playoff.
Will Mickelson win at Augusta again? He's in his 40s and has had health issues and the window won't stay open forever. Will he win another major? Possibly, he's finished second at the U.S. Open five times and won a PGA Championship, but again, time is running out.
Then there are the major players in the showdown that never came to be at Augusta, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Woods came in looking like he was all the way back. He dominated to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational against a strong field on a tough course and was tabbed as the favorite once again at Augusta.
He looked like it for about 16 holes and then looked lost, frustrated and so much unlike the player who dominated the tour in the early 2000s.
McIlroy was well on his way to a green jacket last year until the back nine on Sunday. They say that's when the Masters really begins, but McIlroy's chase ended there in 2011 and never got going this time around.
Woods and McIlroy both finished at 5-over and will now turn their attention to preparing for the U.S. Open in June. Can Rory recapture the magic he had at Congressional last year and repeat as U.S. Open champ? Can Tiger truly return to the top?
Only time will tell, but as the Masters showed us, any answers we get will only lead to more questions.
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