How Bubba Watson Dreams & Sergio Garcia Feels

After Louis Oosthuizen made his double eagle on the par-five second hole, Bubba Watson's face went all Green Beret. He didn't need to dream, he needed to keep playing his game no matter what happened around him.

Watson is your standard-issue, late-blooming tour player. He played golf at a community college and has never taken a lesson. Like other players with unconventional swings Watson must have been easy to write off when he was coming up. Maybe he even wrote himself off. So, when it was finally time for him to slip on the green jacket he said he had never dreamed that big.

For Bubba Watson, his success has surpassed his dreams.

Sergio Garcia is a year younger than Bubba Watson. Garcia has 7 PGA Tour wins to Watson's 4. Most of Garcia's wins came smack in the middle of Tiger Woods glory years while most of Watson's wins have come after Woods' decline. Still, Garcia has stopped dreaming big. He has decided he's simply not good enough to win a major.

Maybe he's right.

On the other hand, it may be Garcia's simply gotten too comfortable telling us how he feels. It started at the British Open a few years back when he told us he felt as though he had to compete against something more than the rest of the field and reached its low point when he said, "I'm not good enough, and today I know it,"

Garcia was good enough to win the British Amateur when he was 18 and good enough to finish tied for second in the 1999 PGA when he was 19. Now, 13 years and 22 professional wins later all he can feel is that he's not good enough.

What Garcia doesn't get is that no one is good enough, regardless of how they feel, until they have gone out and done whatever they've set out to do.

Sergio Garcia should learn from Bubba Watson, forget about his dreams, and stop telling the world how he feels. If he wants to continue to play golf for a living all he has to do is tee it up on Thursday and count 'em up on Sunday.

The only place he's not good enough is in the interview room.

Tiger's Wall

Remember when Tiger first came on tour?

One by one he knocked off Davis Love III, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, and Phil Mickelson.

With each conquest, the wall got a little taller.

Things are clearly going the other way and I am wondering if the up and comers will feel the effect of Tiger's wall at all?

Tiger must now see himself as the kind of player who could seemingly rush his putt on a final green because of the buzz at the back of the green surrounding the winner.

Tiger must now see himself as the kind of player whose main line of defense (his caddie) is buds with his closest competitor.

Tiger, the guy who always said it's all about majors, must now see himself as the kind of player who corrects a post-round interviewer by saying that he won this year, and the win he's talking about was the Chevron.

If Tiger was to remain merely one of the best players on tour, things will change even more. For now, he's still the draw; the single biggest determinant to ratings and ticket sales and he knows it.

What would it be like for him to be just another really good player after 15 years of being the one?

Why the European Tour is Second Best

It's simple. Money.

At last week's Africa Open, the winner took home €158,500...in USD that's only $210,638.

The winner of the Sony Open just the next week took home $990,000.

Now, if you had the game where would you be playing?

But there's more to this: Because of their amazing endorsement deals, Euros like Rory and Luke Donald can show their loyalty to the Euro Tour and still cash in over the course of the season.

Of course, it can play the other way since players like El Tigre & John Daly can make the Euro Tour's comparatively feeble money work for them because of the nice appearance fees they command.

If you take out the top five Euros, the Euro Tour's depth would be pretty much like the Nationwide Tour's. And, if you go down about 5 spots in the money, the 5th place check in a Euro Tour Event is just about the same as the winner's check on the Nationwide.

Actually, 5th on the Euro Tour will usually be quite a bit less...

Take away endorsement money and there'd be nothing left of the Euro Tour because all the players who could would be over here playing the US Tour full time. I'm sure some will do the knee-jerk thing and see this as a typical Euro Bash. It's really not. I actually like the top tier Euros better than most of the top tier players in the US. For me, they have a tad more style, for lack of a better word. It's just their home tour that sucks.

As is so often the case, just follow the money.

An Interesting Winner / A Dull British Open

We certainly cannot blame Louis Oosthuizen for an undeniably dull British Open. The winning margin allowed for as little intrigue as Woods' 2000 US Open win at Pebble Beach. We might have something to say about the dreary play of Lee Westwood, Paul Casey, Tiger Woods & Phil Mickelson but that's fodder for another cannon.

The good news is that Oosthuizen may actually be the kind of man Tiger was merely impersonating. He was humble in victory a trait the legendary golf teacher, Harvey Penick, would have appreciated. He was grateful but not pandering, moved but not awed. The R&A would be hard pressed to find a better winner of the silver medal.

But, beyond Oosthuizen's fine manner is the very interesting story of his caddy, Zack Rasego. The two spent the day talking to each other in Afrikaans but when Rasego called his wife back home after the win he used Rasego, a language used by millions of his black countrymen. I very much doubt that Oosthuizen has ever felt the need to learn his caddy's language, though I could be wrong. The Oosthuizen/Rasego partnership of the last seven years says a great deal about how far South Africa has come since the days of apartheid.

Still, it is sobering to note that of the legions of fine players who have come out of South Africa since Gary Player only black player, James Kamte, has ever attained exempt status on a major tour which Kamte did in 2007 on the European Tour. Surely, others will follow and Oosthuizen & Rasego have made the path just that much smoother.

Why Tiger's The Greatest?

The true essence of Tiger Woods' greatness is found in the top to bottom impact he owns. He misses a cut, hurts his neck and his coach resigns: The result? Non-stop Tiger at ESPN.com and every other online media outlet.

Who won The Players? Does it even matter?

Perhaps as impressive is the amount and variety of cyber-ink Tiger generates from the grass roots golf fan.

Just have a look at these thread titles from just one golf forum:

Tiger's New Swing Coach

Tiger divorce coming?

Un-friggin' Believable--Haney Quits !!

Tiger withdraws from The Players

Tiger with Hank or Butch?

Tiger's Press Conference

Tiger Woods is the next David Duval

Your Neck would Hurt too!

Elin is up to something....

Tiger And Security

Is Tiger Woods good for golf?

Those are only the threads that actually mention Woods by name. I would say that overall about 95% of today's forum post are about Tiger Woods, including the one titled, A bulging What? (my personal favorite).

The real question is not whether Tiger Woods will be back but rather how long can the sponsors who dropped him live without him.

Even injured, missing cuts with a swing and life in disarray he is still golf's most valuable player.

I am not sure if that says anything good about golf or not.