Bubba Watson had some things to be sorry about, and this time, he admitted as much.
After his latest round of immature antics put him in some hot water at the PGA Championship two weeks ago, Watson showed up to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ, on Tuesday ready for The Barclays, and ready to apologize.
“It’s all childish stuff, and trying to mature and become a better man,” Watson said, referring to his foul language and hot-tempered verbal outbursts on the golf course, his dismissing a fun long-drive competition during a practice round, and his overall flippant attitude toward it all with the media.
“I take it on the chin — it was my fault,” Watson said. “Everything’s my fault, and I should be bigger and stronger and better than that.”
Watson comes into the week ranked No. 3 in the FedEx Cup standings, readying not just for the first installment of the four-tournament playoffs, but also for the Ryder Cup. He will represent the United States for the third time when the team heads to Scotland to take on the European squad next month.
“As a kid growing up, your whole dream was to be on the PGA Tour and then make the Ryder Cup team,” said Watson, who has yet to be on a winning Ryder Cup team and whose US team is again going to be the underdog.
“I think sometimes as a player – or myself – we get so excited about making the team, and now not having a victory, that drives me to try to win one.”
Swing coach Sean Foley has two students in the field this week, and neither is Tiger Woods.
The man who started instructing Woods four years ago would not make a single comment on the 14-time major champion, who missed the cut at the PGA Championship and did not qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs as he recovers from microdiscectomy back surgery.
Foley couldn’t be happier with Hunter Mahan and Justin Rose, the two pupils in the field. At the PGA, Mahan finished tied for seventh and Rose tied for 24th.
“Their ball-striking stats at the PGA were ridiculous,” Foley said. “How that translates from week to week, we’ll see.”
Fan favorite and nice guy Matt Kuchar said his back ailment that forced him to withdraw the PGA Championship was nothing serious, and won’t keep him from playing on the US Ryder Cup team.
The injury occurred while looking around a Walmart for a slip-and-slide for his kids, then getting stuck in traffic on the way back from the store, when his back really tightened up.