Bubba Watson was on nobody's watch list when it came to projecting the 2017-18 PGA Tour Player of the Year. Seriously, nobody's. During the 2016-17 season, Watson missed more cuts (seven) than he had top 10s (four) and fell outside the top 100 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Heck, after the 2018 Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, Watson was ranked No. 117 in the world, the same as Cameron Davis is right now.

Four months later with a new golf ball in the bag and a healthier body, Watson is ranked No. 13 in the world, standing as the front-runner for the PGA Tour's Player of the Year award. That's because the wildly creative left-hander has now won three times after taking the Travelers Championship on Sunday (he also won the Genesis Open and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play). He also stands fourth on the money list and is a lock for the U.S. Ryder Cup team in Paris this September. Watson has (somewhat quietly?) been the winningest player on tour this year.

What's fascinating about Watson's season is that he hasn't consistently been the best player on the PGA Tour (even though he leads in wins), and he really hasn't been all that close. Watson ranks No. 32 in strokes gained overall and is T12 in top-10 finishes. Chesson Hadley and Brian Harman have more top 10s than Watson does. Watson entered the Travelers Championship having finished outside the top 25 in each of his four tournaments since the Masters. He has just five top 10s on the year ... and three of them are wins!

However, Watson knows how to get hot at the right time, and he did so again at a familiar place on Sunday. His 63 for his third win at TPC River Highlands was his third round of 67 or better on a Sunday at that course for a victory. Watson is a lot of things, and a Sunday closer with a flair for the dramatic is certainly one of those.

"It's been an amazing ride," said Watson. "My whole career, but this year has been outstanding. After last year, who knows what to expect. It's amazing what some good energy and some healthy energy will do. Coming into the final round, again, I was just trying to play for position. I think I started the day 8th maybe. I'm not sure. So just trying to move up the leaderboard."

Eight of Watson's 12 wins have come at three courses: Riviera, Augusta National and TPC River Highlands. That makes sense given Watson's desire for familiarity and noted struggles with uncomfortable public situations. 

"There are certain places that we've built our schedule, everybody builds their schedule around places they've seen, loved, the atmosphere, all of that comes into play," said Watson. "Around here there are a lot of driver holes where I can hit some drivers and shape it."

Back to this year. Five of the last six PGA Tour Players of the Year have won at least one major to go along with multiple wins. Here's how they broke down with Tiger Woods as the only outlier.

  • 2017 -- Justin Thomas: Five wins, PGA Championship
  • 2016 -- Dustin Johnson: Three wins, U.S. Open
  • 2015 -- Jordan Spieth: Five wins, Masters, U.S. Open
  • 2014 -- Rory McIlroy: Three wins, Open Championship, PGA Championship
  • 2013 -- Tiger Woods: Five wins, no majors
  • 2012 -- Rory McIlroy: Four wins, PGA Championship

The last golfer to win the award with three wins or fewer and no major championship was Luke Donald, who did so in 2011 with just two victories. That year, the four major winners only had five wins total, and Keegan Bradley was the only multiple tournament winner (he won the Byron Nelson and PGA Championship). 

So, while there is precedent for Watson, there isn't recent precedent. The part he has going for him is that the Masters champion, Patrick Reed, doesn't have any other wins; neither does U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka. If The Open and PGA Championship winners don't earn Ws in other events, Watson has a chance. And certainly he can lock it down by winning one of those two majors. The problem for him is that he has exactly one top 10 in 20 combined appearances at The Open and the PGA Championship.

Still, the 2017-18 campaign has been a remarkable one for Watson. You could argue it's his best as a pro, I suppose, although 2014 when he won at Riviera and Augusta National was pretty nice. It's the first time he's won three times in a season on the PGA Tour 

"I won L.A., and then I won the Masters," said Watson of that 2014 season. "Then I holed a bunker shot [at the WGC-HSBC Champions in November, which was part of the 2014-15 season]. Wasn't the same year, but same calendar year where I won my third. I won in China, double-bogeyed 17 and holed a bunker shot to force a playoff and then won the next hole. Then we adopted ... the birth of our child was two days later. [My wife] Angie was in the hospital with the birth mom. I was in China at that time celebrating a victory but celebrating a beautiful child that nobody knew about at that time, at that moment. So in the calendar year -- I still go by calendar year, I don't go by PGA Tour season -- so it's three wins that year. So it was good."

Watson might not go by the PGA Tour calendar, but the award itself is determined by it. Right now, his competition for Player of the Year is stiff, but everyone is behind him. Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Patton Kizzire, Jason Day and Justin Rose have all won twice but none have won a major championship and none can match Watson's collection of three victories, all of which have come in tremendous fields.

Perhaps just one a year after wallowing through a game that had seemingly left him, one in which he finished 91st on tour in strokes gained overall, Watson will pull off something he's never done -- taking home PGA Tour Player of the Year honors. He would have been among the most unlikely candidates coming into 2018, which is sort of fitting for him given his career and his life. There's a lot of season still to be played, but Watson is the front-runner for the most prestigious season-long award on tour. And with 12 tournaments left, nobody is standing between him and that prize.