Los Angeles, CA – After the greens had dried out from the Wednesday night rains Bubba Watson is now 2016 Northern Trust Open Champion. Playing in the last group allow for Watson to see folks moving up and down the leaderboard. The top five were only 3 shots away to finish the weekend and smell the big money.
At the start of the day this was a wide open race with nine golfers with 2 shots of each other. Watson held a one stroke lead coming out on first tee. While Adam Scott tied 2nd place (-14 under-par) gaining a stroke on the winner with Jason Kokrak (-14 under-par) shot same one round score of Watson (-3 under-par) for day. The best round of the day goes to Adam Hadwin (-5 under-par) which left him tied for 16th place with total (-7 under-par) for the tournament.
Watson was asked at what point did he think he won the golf tournament, “So I just held it together and I knew no. 10, is always going to play a big role. I made a 10-footer, 12–footer maybe for par on 10. So that got me going, that got me in a positive. It was like a birdie right.” If look at Watson game this week he had four round in the 60’s with some great birdies. He is the 2016 champion because of his consistent play by the lefty, just playing his game all week.
Scott was all smiles and came away with a birdie on 18th green on chip from the second cut after moving the fans to allow for him to chip in add little pressure on Watson. Scott said, “That was probably an unlikely 3.. You know, the chip was traveling a little quick but I picked a club that I knew would release to the pin because I had one thing I could do only to win and that was chip-in.”
So now Watson has is second victory on this old school tradition track of the Riviera Country Club. He likes the course and said, “It feels nice. Anytime you can win, being in that situation before here and pulling it out, it’s kind of the same shot that I had on 18. I hit wedge an 14 I hit 9-iron today, so it was the same kind of shot and it worked out.”
The PGA Tour will now move away from it’s west coast swing and be in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida for The Honda Classic on the Championship Course.
