Bubba Watson and Tiger Woods would go back and forth during their practice rounds together in the early 2000s. It was the same refrain.
Woods would chirp at Watson about their tournament wins — majors and PGA titles.
Advantage Tiger.
Watson would chirp at Woods over raw power — the longest drive.
Advantage Bubba.
“[Woods] would always be like, ‘Well, look how many wins I got,’” Watson said in a conversation with FOX Sports. “I said, ‘Yeah, but you can never outdrive me. You can’t learn to outdrive me.’ I said, ‘Anybody can learn to win golf tournaments. But how can you learn to outdrive me.’ So I used to pick on him. He’d pick on me about his wins and I’d pick on him about being shorter than me.”
Bubba Watson’s calling card has long been his ability to drive the ball great distances. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
It’s the type of conversation Watson has had a few times in his career — with Woods and other golfers — given Watson was the longest driver on the PGA Tour for five years. He took away the mantle passed down by great power hitters like John Daly, Greg Norman and Davis Love.
It’s the type of conversation Watson has avoided with his LIV Golf league-mate, Bryson DeChambeau, who is now synonymous with long drives in many of the ways Watson once was.
“I hate to say this, but as men, you want to be the longest, right?” Watson said, chuckling. “Bryson’s so far ahead of me that we can’t even have a conversation. … He’s the bodybuilder of golf. He’s just a big brute. It’s amazing to watch what he’s doing and what he’s creating.”
If Watson is the Alex Rodriguez or the Bryce Harper of LIV Golf, Bryson is the power hitter of the present and future. He’s the Aaron Judge.
This year on LIV, DeChambeau is averaging a driving distance of 333.3 yards, first in the league. Watson sits in 13th at 314.2 yards. But for golf’s biggest hitters, it’s not only about how far they hit it. It’s about where they hit it with all that length. DeChambeau has found fairways on 66% of his shots this year (including shots taken with non-driver clubs) and Watson has found it on 65%.
Anyone who has stepped foot on a tee box knows that it’s not enough to simply crush the ball. You have to shape it. You have to stick the landing. You have to put it where you intend. You have to, at least, miss in the right spot.
The best-driving athletes can achieve both results: power and precision.
“I don’t know how to say this the right way, but if you look at my stats over the course of my career, I have length and I have accuracy,” Watson said. “And when I say accuracy, I’m not saying the best. I’m saying: for my length, I’m probably one of the most accurate as far as I hit it.
He added: “Accuracy is probably the wrong word. It’s probably about controlling your golf ball. Putting it where you need to put it.”
For long hitters, it’s also about simply getting the chance to hit with their driver. After all, most courses don’t even call for the driver for more than 14 swings per round. They’ll use their irons, wedges and putters at a much higher clip. But Watson seems to relish the opportunity to pull that particular club out of his bag.
“The driver is the key for me,” he said. “I hit driver hard. I hit driver easy. I slice it, I draw it. So driver gets me in the mood. So when I’m having to hit a lot of irons off the tee, it just doesn’t get me in the flow that I’m looking for. And so being able to hit driver, driver does that for me.
“It’s like, Bryson. When you see Bryson hit a bomb, he gets pretty energized pretty fast.”
That’s for sure.
DeChambeau is as emotive as golfers get, including when he drove the green on his very first shot of the tournament at LIV Mexico City. But he’s also created interesting lines with his driver, whether it was the sixth hole at the 2020 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits or his monster drive at the 6th hole at Bay Hill during the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Those shots created huge opportunities through power and precision.
One thing Watson wanted to make clear was that while he loves using his driver, he doesn’t love swinging himself into the dirt at the driving range. He’d much rather be out on the course when he’s getting ready for an event.
“It’s boring, right? You’re put in a new, good lie every time. You’re hitting to a big field,” Watson said. “So I want creativity. I want to be able to move the ball and do things. And so that’s what I’m trying to do.”
There might be no course that better challenges golfers to do that than the Augusta National, where no shortage of power hitters have succeeded. Watson won twice there. DeChambeau was in the hunt to win over the last two years. But it’s not intuitively a power-hitter’s dream course. After all, it’s a place where the greens are ruthless, which one might associate with golfers with a a light touch. With finesse.
But Watson explained why he thinks so many power-driving golfers have won there.
“Longer swingers, longer hitters — remember, they have power. So what creates recovery shots is power,” he said. “By having the rough not being that high or the trees — being able to play out of pine straw — big hitters, faster clubhead speeds can curve, make curves, and do different shots. And so at Augusta, you have that ability to do that right. It’s not this foot-long rough where you have to chip out. The limbs under the trees are playable. They want you to hit creative shots. Or they give you the chance to make creative shots.
“It’s all about controlling your golf swing.”
Bryson DeChambeau is the current king of lbigger hitters across golf. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Rory McIlroy is the other big hitter in golf — the longest on the PGA. And guess who won the last Masters? Yup, it was McIlroy. In 2023, it was Jon Rahm, another LIV golfer known for his driving prowess. Scottie Scheffler has won two of the last four Masters. He might not be a guy you immediately associate with driving. But make no mistake, Scheffler is a master with the big club.
“He’s actually sneaky long,” Watson said. “You don’t talk about it. You’re amazed by his footwork and by his ability to win and his ability to beat you. We don’t ever look and say, ‘Oh, he does average over 300 yards.’”
Scheffler is, after all, the guy who looks like he’s going to rip himself out of his shoes every time he swings a driver. When it comes to passing off the torch, Watson admitted there are two players in consideration. There’s McIlroy and there’s DeChambeau.
But really, it’s just DeChambeau.
Watson added: “Bryson’s doing something that we’ve only dreamed of.”
That’s through power and precision.
Before joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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This article was originally published at www.foxsports.com
