Find Me A 100 Winner: Bubba Watson

Find Me A 100 Winner / Paul Krishnamurty / 27 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

Averaging a massive 315 yards off the tee, this week's pick could reduce Scottsdale to a pitch and putt. But there's more to the big priced Floridian than big hitting, says Paul Krishnamurty.

Two of the last three FBR Opens have gone to JB Holmes, which suggests one very clear trend that punters should be looking for - huge driving distance. Holmes is a very one-dimensional player, and someone who would be hard to fancy on most courses. However, because he can drive the ball so far, he always has to come in for serious consideration on courses that can be overpowered. On the back of those wins, JB's price is unsurprisingly well below our three-figure target, but with those results in mind I reckon its worth having a crack at odds of around [130.0] on a very similar type of player, Bubba Watson.

Whereas JB ranks 5th in driving distance on the PGA Tour over the last six months, averaging a massive 310 yards off the tee, Watson is ranked a couple of places higher and averages 315 yards. In his third round at last week's Bob Hope Classic, Watson averaged a quite incredible 343 yards. A repeat performance at Scottsdale would take many of the bunkers out of play and reduce this old course to a pitch and putt.

But there are broader reasons to fancy Bubba this week beyond purely driving distance. Chief among them is that he played very well for the first four rounds last week, in an event where he'd never prospered before. A poor final round sent him tumbling down the leaderboard to 25th place, but that was still a decent effort. And he's looked more than capable of winning an event during his three years on the PGA Tour. He's twice finished runner-up, most recently in last May's Crowne Plaza Invitational, and made the top-5 on five other occasions. One of those came in the 2007 US Open, so clearly there is more to his game than big-hitting.