It's not always easy for the written word to keep pace with television, but once in a while, a man with a keyboard gets the last word. So it was with Dave Kindred's lovely account of Bubba Watson winning the Masters on GolfDigest.com -- a piece of writing so effecting (OK, we're biased) that when Watson made an appearance on the "CBS This Morning" show, host Charlie Rose felt compelled to read it aloud to the newest major champion.
See for yourself in the video below:
Results in The Masters
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Trending: Bubba Watson on Letterman
It wasn't a matter of if Bubba Watson would make an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, but when. Considering CBS has been airing The Masters since what feels like the dawn of time, it's become an annual tradition for the champ to take a seat next to the king of late night. And so last night, 2012 Masters champ Bubba Watson took his rightful position to the right (our left) of David Letterman, for a candid, somewhat personal interview that touched on many of the traits that make Watson a fan favorite (ie -- he never took lessons; be ready to hear that one for a few months). This is all well and good, and Bubba certainly is a charming guy, but can you blame me for hoping to see a "Top 10 reasons Bubba Watson was crying at the Masters" countdown?
-- Derek Evers
Follow @DerekEvers
Augusta double eagle ball makes its way home
(Louis Oosthuizen throws his double-eagle ball to the crowd. Photo by Al Tielemans/Getty Images)
The thrilling journey of the most famous golf ball in recent Masters history is over.
The ball belonged to Louis Oosthuizen. After making double-eagle at the second hole Sunday, the South African tossed the ball to a fan in the gallery. That man, Wayne Mitchell, gave it to Augusta National Golf Club. The club then returned the ball to Oosthuizen, who, in turn, donated it to the club for its archives.
Still unanswered, this question: What kind of deal did Mitchell strike with Augusta National? In exchange for the piece of history, did he wangle a lifetime badge? Or a round of golf with Billy Payne? Perhaps all the peach cobbler he could eat?
"I'm not discussing that," Mitchell said Tuesday morning. "I was happy to give them the ball."
Read moreThis year's Masters by the (unofficial) numbers
AUGUSTA, Ga, -- At the end of a memorable Masters, one man's (unofficial) tallies from a week in Augusta:
27: Number of different times Bubba Watson broke into tears after winning on Sunday night.
1: Number of times the collective media broke into tears, when the press room ran out of Krispy Kremes.
Photo by Getty Images
7: Number of different pronunciations of "Oosthuizen" attempted by broadcasters, Augusta National officials, and spectators on Sunday. For future reference, the accepted version is "LOO-EEE".
1: Number of major championships won by a guy using a hot pink driver. This does not include Old Tom Morris, who used a hot pink niblick.
Read moreTrending: Phil & Bones' animated (gif) missed-putt reaction
It might not be the whiffed handshake between Bubba Watson and Billy Payne, or the slow-motion fan reaction to Watson's missed winning putt on 18. But with photographer J.D. Cuban positioned out on Augusta National all week, it was hard not to take advantage of this series of photographs. In honor of Eadweard J. Muybridge's birthday (quite possibly the inventor of the animated gif), we pieced together Cuban's photos of Phil Mickelson's missed eagle putt on 13 yesterday at The Masters -- most notably, his reaction and that of his caddie, Jim "Bones" Mackay, who dropped to his knees in anguish. Next time Bones should consider dropping to his knees to Tebow; maybe then Phil would be crying and getting tweets from the famed quarterback.
(Animated gif by Liz Bergren)
-- Derek Evers
Follow @DerekEvers
As only he can, Bubba sees an opening, and seizes it
(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- In the gathering darkness, from the shadows of giant loblolly pines, from atop a bed of pine needles, with immortality at stake, Bubba Watson did what Bubba Watson always does. He hit a shot only he saw. It had to head for daylight, then turn sharp right. It did. He won the Masters.
Watson had 135 yards to the front of the 10th green, the second hole of a sudden-death playoff with the little South Africa virtuoso, Louis Oosthuizen. The question was, could Bubba bust it out of jail? As he walked down the fairway toward his ball 30 yards deep in the trees, Watson thought he knew the answer to that question.
"I saw the gap," he said.
Read moreEven in defeat, Mickelson at least makes it interesting
(Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, GA. - Jack Nicklaus may have been the greater winner, but Arnold Palmer was the more important golfer, a virtual one-man grow-the-game program through the sheer force of his personality. And while Tiger Woods may have dominated the last 15 years and inspired awe, Phil Mickelson won more hearts simply because his game was more akin to what the rest of us experience -- unpredictable and at times unfairly cruel, but always fun. That's why we play; that's why Lefty plays. Golf is supposed to be fun.
There have been more than enough wins -- 40 on the PGA Tour including the Masters three times and a PGA Championship -- to make Mickelson an easy first-ballot member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, to which he will be inducted in May. Still, the refrain that has been sung way too often in the soundtrack of Lefty's career contains the words "what if." And that's has a lot to do with how much fun Mickelson has had playing golf.
Read moreMedia: 'I never got this far in my dreams'
CBS' mandate in televising the Masters is rather simple, really. Don't mess it up. Uncannily, it is handed a remarkably entertaining script year after year, this one even featuring a character named Bubba and another nicknamed Shrek.
Bubba Watson won and Louis Oosthuizen (aka Shrek) lost, but CBS achieved its objective.
"Oh, my goodness, just a classic excuse to conjure up another piece of magic," Nick Faldo said eloquently, after Watson's second shot, a duck hook from the woods, on the second playoff hole, the shot that delivered victory.
David Feherty also shined on Sunday, starting with his unusual call of Oosthuizen's double-eagle at the second hole.
There was no television -- and therefore no commentary -- when Gene Sarazen made his double-eagle at 15 in the 1935 Masters, but had there been, suffice it to say that it would not have resembled Feherty's call:
"This one could be very nice...could be very nice...oh, come to papa, yes!"
Feherty ably summed up Oosthuizen's apparent unflappability in the heat of a Masters Sunday. "It was not meant to look this simple," he said.
"I'd just love to know his heartbeat," Faldo added.
But the star of this show was Watson, down to the Butler Cabin interview.
"I never got this far in my dreams," Watson said.
All in all, a performance worthy of the script with which it had to work.
A few objections, meanwhile
-- Phil Mickelson's conversations with caddie Jim Mackay are entertaining, but not at the expense of seeing another contender's shot. While the audience was listening to Mickelson and Mackay talking over the second shot at 15, Watson was hitting his tee shot at 16 and he hit it close. The roars gave it away.
-- Peter Oosterhuis said this about Watson: "He's the most creative player ever." Never say ever, notwithstanding Watson's magic on second playoff hole. Remember Seve?
-- Adam Scott made an ace on the 16th hole, but CBS did not show it until Scott was playing the 18th hole. Odd.
-- What happened to that man felled by Peter Hanson's drive on the eighth hole?
Read moreAfter falling well short at Augusta, Woods looks ahead
(Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He needs "more reps" to "keep progressing" because he still fights the "old motor patterns."
Even if his performance in his 18th Masters appearance was surprising, the manner in which Tiger Woods explained was predictable.
The four-time champion birdied his final hole early Sunday afternoon as a consolation prize in a round of two-over-par 74, but his performance in the 76th Masters was by all accounts one of his poorest as he ended up T-41 with a 5-over 293 aggregate total. Both tied his career worst showing at Augusta National GC; he finished T-41 at 293 in his Masters debut as an amateur in 1995. As a professional, Woods previously had not finished worse than T-22 in 2004.
Read moreOwning a piece of history, if only for a moment
(Louis Oosthuizen's ball moments after he picked it out of the cup. Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Like everyone else behind the second green, Wayne Mitchell rose in applause for Louis Oosthuizen's double-eagle Sunday afternoon. But only Mitchell left the green as the owner of a Titleist Pro V1X golf ball that is part of Masters history.
"He caught my eye, and threw it straight to me," Mitchell said of Oosthuizen. "My fear was that I'd drop it."
About 10:30 Sunday morning, Mitchell put down his folding chair against the gallery rope maybe 35 feet from the flagstick, which stood in the far right corner of the green. Mitchell is 59 years old, an industrial gasket company executive from New Tripoli, Pa. Some time that morning, he said, he told a friend, "It'd be kind of neat to see an eagle."
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