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>> ONES TO WATCH Lee Westwood
T e 39-year-old English- man surely now must be considered the best player in the world without a major championship. He’s fi nished in the top ten at 14 majors, including eight times in the top fi ve, but has been unable to break through. He moved to South Florida this year, avoiding all those back-and-forth commutes
to Europe, and is playing the PGA Tour for the second straight season. Westwood once spent 22 weeks as the No. 1-ranked player in the world before being deposed by countryman Luke Donald in 2010. He has 39 worldwide victories, two European Tour money titles, and has been a key member of six victorious European Ryder Cup teams over the course of his brilliant career. “I feel fi tter now than I did when I was 30,” he said. “I enjoy practicing and working out and hopefully I will win one major before I’m 40 and win some more when I’m in my 40s.”
Keegan Bradley
T e 2011 PGA Championship winner will forever be known as the fi rst player ever to prevail in a major championship using a long putter, but he’s also making his mark as one of the game’s bright and shining young stars. T e son of a PGA teaching professional and the nephew of LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley, he began his athletic ca- reer as a promising ski racer in his home state of Vermont. He played at St. John’s University in New York, then had big-time success since joining the PGA Tour in 2010, with three victories, and a major for his fi rst-ever pro triumph. “I think major courses suit me a little better,” said Bradley, who tied for third at last year’s PGA Championship. “I prefer a (winning) score that is single digits under par. T e harder the golf course, the better.”
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Bubba Watson
T e popular 2012 Masters champion has a simple mantra: “If I have a swing, I have a shot.” Never was that more obvious than on that memo- rable 2012 Masters Sunday when his 52-degree gap wedge hooked 40 yards out of the trees on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff , landed on the green 15 feet from the cup and led to a two-putt par that defeated South African Louis Oosthuizen. Watson began his 2013 season with three top-ten fi nishes in his fi rst four starts and six top-20s in his fi rst six events. A native of Milton, FL, where he played golf at a high school that also produced PGA Tour players Heath Slocum and Boo Weekley, he has his own distinct theory of how to play what is known as Bubba Golf. “My game isn’t based off hitting fairways, hitting greens,” he said. “It’s not based on a mechanical thing. It’s based on having fun, feeling a shot and hopefully pulling it off .”
Webb Simpson
T e 27-year-old from Charlotte, NC, entered the fi nal round of the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic in San Francisco trailing the leaders by four shots, only to shoot a 68 on Sunday and prevail over Graeme McDowell and Michael T ompson by a stroke for his fi rst major tri- umph. “If I was honest with you, I believed in myself I could win a major, but maybe not so soon,” Simpson said. “I gained all the respect for the guys who have won multiple majors, because it’s so hard to do. T e level of pressure is so much greater than a regular event.” Making the year even more memorable, Simpson and his wife, Dowd, welcomed their second child, Willow Grace, into the world in July. He missed the British Open to be there for the birth, but also made his fi rst U.S. Ryder Cup team, fi nishing with a 2-2 record.
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Leonard Shapiro covered golf for T e Washington Post for over 20 years, and is a past president of the Golf Writers Association of America.
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AFP/GETTY IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES (WESTWOOD)
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