The American Bubba Watson has joined the list of golfers who have managed to win twice the Augusta Masters tournament after beating his compatriot Jordan Spieth, the Swede Jonas Blixt and the Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez on the last day. Watson, 35, who had declared from the start of the tournament that he wanted a champion’s ‘Green Jacket’ for the second time in three years, got his wish thanks to the efficiency with which he hit the ball, his control and accuracy at the key moments of each hole.
The new Masters champion concluded the fourth round with a card of 69 strokes, three under par, which was too much for Spieth, the 20-year-old Texan who emerged as the great revelation and who hounded him almost until the end. But Spieth could not in his last round maintain the same level of play as in the third round and fell three strokes short of being the youngest winner of the tournament since 1931.
Watson, who won his first ‘Green Jacket’ in 2012 and who with this victory becomes the seventh player to win two majors at the Masters and the first since the Spaniard José María Olazabal in 1994 and 1999, was prevented from doing so. The other golfers who achieved it were Horton Smith (1934, 1936), Jimmy Demaret (1940, 1947), Arnold Palmer (1958, 1960), German Bernhard Langer (1985, 1993), Ben Crenshaw (1984-1995) and Olazabal (1994, 1999).
Watson won the title thanks to his consistency throughout the tournament. Only in his third start he allowed himself to surpass the par of the course by scoring 74 strokes, while in the first he signed 69, in the second 68 and in the last again 69. Total 280 worth a second jacket. “I never liked the green so much,” declared Watson, after last year’s winner, Australian Adam Scott, placed the symbolic and traditional jacket on his shoulders.
The victory allows Watson to become the 17th golfer in history to win the Masters more than once, and he joined the list headed by the legendary Jack Nicklaus, who won it six times (1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986), followed by Palmer (1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964) and Tiger Woods (1997, 2001, 2002 and 2005), who won it four times.
The American player lived with intensity the fourth and final round to see how Spieth and Blixt pushed him to snatch the victory. But everything changed from the eighth hole, Watson made two consecutive birdies, while Spieth made two bogeys, which definitely paved his way to his second victory at Augusta.
Jiménez, fourth, signs his best performance
Miguel Angel Jimenez, 50, in his best performance in his 15 appearances at the Augusta Masters, was fourth with a total of 284 strokes, four under par. “It’s the closest I’ve ever come to winning a major,” Jimenez said after finishing his fourth round. “Finishing fourth leaves you with a regular taste. If they tell you that between now and the end of your career you’re going to finish fourth in every tournament you might sign it, but when you’re here and you see the options… it’s tough.”
The golfer from Malaga reiterated that he had achieved important victories on the European Tour, but his great dream has always been to conclude his career as champion of a “major”. “I have 20 victories on the European Tour and what I would like is to finish off with a ‘Major’. I don’t know what it means to win a ‘Major’ and I would love to experience that feeling,” said Jiménez, who was the best classified of the four Spanish players who participated in the tournament.
Gonzálo Fernández Castaño concluded the tournament with 292 strokes, four over par, and received a prize of 66,600 dollars, as he ranked twenty-sixth, tied with four other players. Olazabal dropped to thirty-fourth place with 294 strokes (seven over par), tied with two other golfers, and received a prize of 48,600 dollars.
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