I guess I'm a little bit confused here. Bubba Watson stated Wednesday that he does not like TPC Scottsdale, where the Phoenix Open is played. That's understandable. Pros don't like a lot of the courses they play on. What's strange about it, though, is that Watson has finished runner up at this tournament the last two years and is the all-time leading scorer.
Here's Justin Ray with the all-time scoring breakdown (minimum 10 rounds played).
Bubba Watson: 68.24
Brendan Steele: 68.30
Scott Piercy: 68.65
Hunter Mahan: 68.74
Brandt Snedeker: 68.79
"I'm here because of my sponsors and everything, and so I love coming here," Watson said.
"I don't like it," Watson said when asked why he likes the course. "I'm not going to PC it. I don't like it at all. I just mentioned why I'm here. I've got three beautiful sponsors that love it here."
So ... why don't you like it, Bubba?
"I didn't see any reason to change it," Watson said. "You know, again, they didn't ask me. It's just my own opinion. I didn't see any reason to change it."
The changes he's referencing happened before the 2015 tournament (where Watson finished T2). Here's Golf Channel with a summary.
Tom Weiskopf toughened up the course before last year's tournament. He resurfaced many of the greens, brought more fairway bunkers into play for the longer hitters and narrowed several of the landing areas.
Obviously, Watson doesn't enjoy the "fairway bunkers into play for the longer hitters" portion of that.
"So just to me it just seems like all they did is just tightened it up," Watson said. "Scores didn't change. It just makes it goofier and tougher, which is not fun for us. We came here for a reason. We came here because we want to play golf and shoot good scores. But 500,000 people show up here. I didn't see there is a reason to change something that's not broke."
All of this hubbub, and he'll probably finish runner-up again.
