Sheboygan, Wisconsin - While other players waited out the fog delay on the driving range or putting green, Bubba Watson played games on his phone and threw things at Rickie Fowler while his good friend was trying to sleep.
There are, Watson knows all too well, more important things to get worked up about than a round of golf.
The fun-loving Watson earned a share of the early lead with Francesco Molinari at the PGA Championship on Thursday, shooting a four-under 68. Jason Day of Australia turned in a 3-under 69, and sits one shot off the lead.
Afterward, he choked up talking about the difficult year his family has endured, with his father battling cancer and his wife having a scare of her own.
“It’s kind of emotional now,” he said, stopping several times to compose himself. “The first doctor told us the wrong diagnosis, but we didn’t know that at the time, so it was scary.”
It wasn’t all that long ago that Watson had a different outlook on life. A fan favorite for his booming tee shots and pink-shafted driver, he missed five straight cuts last summer, starting at the British Open.
Usually good-natured, he found himself getting angry every time he stepped on the course.
Finally, his longtime caddie — and good friend — Ted Scott pulled him aside. Watson needed to change his attitude. If not, Scott said, he could find a new caddie.
“When he sat there as a good friend of mine and told me that he was going to quit because of my attitude, you’ve got to change it,” Watson said.
Instead of getting worked up about his game, now Watson puts as big a premium on fun as he does on his driving and putting.
Since arriving at Whistling Straits on Sunday night, Watson and Fowler have been busy tossing the football around and playing basketball.
Of course, if any player could use some off-the-course levity these days, it’s Watson.
When he and his wife were visiting his father during Christmas, Angie Watson checked herself into a hospital with a severe headache.
“She’s a professional athlete who had surgery on knees, shoulder, everywhere possible,” Watson said of his wife, a former WNBA player.
“So when she wants to go to the hospital, I know something’s wrong.”
She wound up only being dehydrated. But doctors told the Watsons that, during the course of their tests, they’d found a tumor in Angie Watson’s pituitary gland.
“Two months went by and we did some more tests — man, this is hard,” Watson said, stopping to compose himself.
Later, doctors told them Angie Watson did not have cancer. Like many taller women, her pituitary gland was enlarged.
When Watson won in Hartford in June, the emotions of everything he’s gone through this last year spilled over.
“When I’ve been angry, my wife has yelled at me a few times and said, ‘Why are you angry? This is what you love to do,’ ” he said.
“When you’re home, when you’re not playing golf, you’re playing golf with all the boys back home. So you love to do this. So why not just go have fun and do it.’ ”
Associated Press
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