{"id":26507,"date":"2025-07-26T22:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T22:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/26507\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T22:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T22:56:11","slug":"bubba-watsons-2-changes-have-him-feeling-like-old-self-at-liv-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/26507\/","title":{"rendered":"Bubba Watson’s 2 changes have him feeling like old self at LIV UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since joining LIV Golf, Bubba Watson<\/a> has rarely been in contention. The two-time Masters champion even found himself in the \u201cdrop zone\u201d after last season, but returned to the Range Goats after stating his \u201cbusiness case\u2019 to not be relegated. <\/p>\n

Watson dealt with a knee injury that required surgery in 2022. He made his LIV Golf debut in 2023 but has not looked like the major-winning Bubba Watson since his move to the breakaway league. He had just one top-10 finish in 2023 and zero in 2024. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe last couple years, it\u2019s been a struggle,\u201d Watson said on Saturday after the second round of LIV Golf UK. \u201cBeen a struggle mentally, physically and golf-wise. You want to play better, right? \u2026 I want to have a strong finish to the year, and I see that I can do it. Now, will I do it is the question. But I would love to finish in the top 20 if not better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson\u2019s play has ticked up this season. He finished T4 at LIV Virginia and T7 at LIV Mexico City. He is once again playing good golf this week in England at LIV Golf UK<\/a>. He sits in second place but is six shots behind two-lead Joaquin Niemann<\/a>, heading into the final day at JCB Golf and Country Club. While Watson\u2019s chances of securing his first LIV win on Sunday are slim, the 46-year-old is encouraged by his returning form.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this is a positive step forward going forward in my career,\u201d Watson said. \u201cObviously the better finish I can do, the better it is for me, better for the team, better for everything. Yeah, I\u2019m going to get out there and battle. Second place right now looks like it\u2019s a good place to finish, so it\u2019s going to be a battle for the second place, if nothing else.\u201d <\/p>\n

Watson\u2019s improved play is the product of two changes he\u2019s made \u2014 a new caddie and a new putter.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s really good,\u201d Watson said of his improving game after the recent changes. \u201cI\u2019m making the putts. Obviously caddie change. Listening to him on the greens, working with him on my putting, it\u2019s been fun. It\u2019s energized me. I feel like a young kid out here learning the game all over again. It\u2019s exciting, and I\u2019ve been calm, working on the mental side of it, and I\u2019ve been calm out there on the golf course, and it\u2019s paying off.\u201d <\/p>\n

Watson now has Kyle Peters, who caddied for Corey Conners in the past, on the bag. <\/p>\n

As for the putter change, Watson has Peter Uihlein to thank for that. <\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to Peter Uihlein, who\u2019s on my team. He\u2019s well-known for being a great putter. \u2026 So I asked him what he did, and he told me he works on his stroke, works on trying to get the stroke the same every time. He told me a couple things to do, a couple training aids, a couple different things to use,\u201d Watson said. \u201cThen I went back to the Ping engineers and asked them what kind of putter I need. I need something that can hit it harder but also keep the ball on line if you mis-hit it. So we went to a mallet. I got a mallet, a Tyne putter, and it\u2019s working so far. I\u2019m getting them to the hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my career I usually leave them a little short so they\u2019re usually just missing because I like to die the putts, and now it\u2019s getting a little bit harder. Without changing my stroke, it\u2019s getting a little bit harder, so more are going in. It\u2019s exciting, and I\u2019ve been calm, working on the mental side of it, and I\u2019ve been calm out there on the golf course, and it\u2019s paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The caddie change and new putter have Watson energized and playing good golf. But he is also now several years removed from the meniscus surgery on his knee, and is finally understanding how his post-surgery body needs to play golf. <\/p>\n

As it turns out, time might be the biggest key of all to Watson\u2019s apparent resurgence. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t think about it until it happens, where my knee, my forward knee is where I like to put all my weight on chipping and putting, and then when you go through surgery and go through muscle changes, you kind of create bad habits,\u201d Watson said. \u201cSo my bad habits, getting back on my heels, maybe even on my other side, so I\u2019m not the same technique that I\u2019ve always used, if that makes sense. So in all my years of practicing and playing, my technique has now changed over these last couple years, so we really dug in and tried to figure out what it is. So we\u2019ve tried to figure that out, and I think we made a big step forward in finding out what it is. As my leg gets stronger \u2014 it takes two years for your leg to get stronger in that position, so here we are. Now we\u2019re talking to you about some of my best finishes. Hopefully we can keep it going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Josh Schrock<\/p>\n

Golf.com Editor<\/p>\n

Josh Schrock is a writer and reporter for Golf.com. Before joining GOLF, Josh was the Chicago Bears insider for NBC Sports Chicago. He previously covered the 49ers and Warriors for NBC Sports Bay Area. A native Oregonian and UO alum, Josh spends his free time hiking with his wife and dog, thinking of how the Ducks will break his heart again, and trying to become semi-proficient at chipping. A true romantic for golf, Josh will never stop trying to break 90 and never lose faith that Rory McIlroy\u2019s major drought will end (updated: he did it). Josh Schrock can be reached at josh.schrock@golf.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since joining LIV Golf, Bubba Watson has rarely been in contention. The two-time Masters champion even found himself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-26507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}