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Matt Kuchar lost his train of thought after becoming hypnotized by a Bubba Watson photo

August 20, 2019
BMW Championship - Round Two

Andrew Redington

ATLANTA—Tiger Woods' media sessions are must-sees because, well, everything Tiger Woods does is must-see. Phil Mickelson's press conferences are more like college classes, with Professor Phil happy to be at the podium.

But when Matt Kuchar is behind the microphone, what manifests is a work of art.

There is not enough space on the Internet to list all of Kuchar's compositions; that would be like naming every Chick-fil-A in Atlanta. Our two Kuchar favorites, for the uninitiated: not knowing the 2016 Olympic golf format (despite being in the Olympics), and dropping daggers on Mickelson at the 2017 Presidents Cup with Mickelson at his side.

Though Kuchar's time with the media at East Lake on Tuesday doesn't quite rank with those masterpieces, the back-and-forth still generated a thing of beauty.

It started out with a straightforward question, one regarding the Tour Championship's new scoring format, and to Kuchar's credit, he tried to answer in sincerity. Alas—or perhaps the word we are looking for is "luckily"—the response was derailed thanks to the hypnotic forces of ... Bubba Watson.

The play-by-play, for posterity:

Q. Matt, I was curious, when you first heard about the starting strokes format, what was your reaction? And do you think this will help clear up some of the confusion from the previous format where guys maybe didn't know where they stood during the course of the tournament?

MATT KUCHAR: When I first heard of it, it was different for golf and thinking it doesn't make a whole lot of sense at first. The more I thought about it and understood the -- God, I don't know why I'm looking at that crazy photo of Bubba Watson right now. I don't understand what that's doing in here. He's got such a puzzled look on his face.

THE MODERATOR: That's nothing new, right?

MATT KUCHAR: It captures Bubba perfectly actually.

Back to the points ...

(Chef's kiss)

For inquiring minds, here is the poster in question at the East Lake media center:

IMG_0002.JPG

No wonder Kuchar was enchanted. We were in a trance until a photographer came through and snapped us out of it. It's like the painting from "Ghostbusters II."

Kuchar will begin the Tour Championship six strokes back of Justin Thomas. Should he win the Tour Championship, well, expect a $15 million-worthy press conference.