Tuning up for Match Play, Bubba Watson dials it back at Valspar Championship and gets a nice result

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Bubba Watson received an interesting message from his longtime caddie, Ted Scott, before he got on the grounds at Innisbrook Resort for the Valspar Championship this week. As the two readied for only their second start at the Copperhead since 2011 (Watson missed the cut in 2017, his only other trip since then), Scott offered some words of wisdom to Watson:

Let’s play really, really smart.

“It might have been Sunday night, or Monday, but he texted me and he said, ‘To play good around here you're going to have to play boring golf,’” Watson said. “So I joked with him and said, that's my whole game – boring. You have to pick and choose your battles around here.”

Watson chose them well over 72 holes, shooting 3-under 68 on Sunday to tie for fourth, his second top-5 at this event. As always, he played aggressively off the tee – hey, this is Bubba we’re talking about – but with his irons, he decided to play a little more conservatively into the greens.

“We looked at the top 10. What does it take to get in the top 10?” Watson said. “It's about greens in regulation here we figured out and so you had to just kind of plot along and that's kind of what I did. I hit a driver a lot because I love it, I dinked it here and there, but I hit a lot of irons off tees just to get the ball in play. Even if I laid back a lot further, I trusted my iron game to hit some of the greens and that's really what I did.

“I putted really good today, the other days were just decent. For me it was good though.”

The performance was Watson’s best since a tie for fourth at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in early February, which represented Watson's only top 10 in seven starts this season. He started Sunday six shots behind Paul Casey and knows that at the Copperhead, lots of crazy things can happen. Watson birdied his first hole but would add only one more in his next 12 holes.

“When you start out slow and don't make any birdies … you're like, well, second place ain't bad, let's try for that, and then third place and fourth place,” Watson said. “So it's one of those things where, yeah, you have that vision (of catching the leader) and then after nine holes you realize that vision is gone so now just get a good finish, a good top 10 or top 5 if you have a chance.”

Watson said his goal once he reached 10 victories was to get to 15 (he has 12). Now 40, he says he’s been inspired by watching fellow left-hander Phil Mickelson win at 48 ("I've got eight years," he joked). Watson’s next stop is Austin for the Wolrd Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, a tournament he won a year ago, dispatching fellow Georgia Bulldog Kevin Kisner in the finals, 7 and 6.

“I vote every year not to have Match Play, because I feel like I have a better chance in 72 holes (stroke play),” Watson said with a smile. “But nobody ever asks me.”