Bubba Watson is looking to go back to back this week at the Greenbrier Classic. Fresh off his eighth PGA Tour win at The Travelers Watson is feeling quite at home at the Old White Course since making the Greenbrier his summer home a few seasons ago. 
Back to back isn’t easy on the PGA Tour but on courses set up to yield some birdies Bubba certainly has a fighting chance.
Bubba is known for his long game but the difference for Bubba this year comes from a few surprising short game statistics.
He has improved from 74th in scrambling last year to sixth on the tour this year.
He ranks 2nd in scrambling from the rough, up from 39th in ’14.
His putting from five feet has turned into a strength as he ranks 6th up drastically from 81st last year.
But the most shocking area of improvement for Bubba is his overall putting. Last year he finished the season at 110th on tour in strokes gained putting. This year so far he is a surprising 18th on this very critical stat. An improvement like that may explain Bubba’s success this season.
And better putting means more birdies and that’s good news for Bubba.
The PGA Tour course set up is slanted towards promoting plenty of birdies and Bubba, when on, can be a birdie machine and let’s not forget eagles where he ranks second on tour.
And it seems that Bubba fares well on a course set up for low scoring. In his six PGA Tour wins, not including The Masters, Bubba averages 14.5 shots under par.
At Augusta National in his two wins he averaged nine under par. Augusta may be set up a bit tougher than the average PGA Tour stop.
Bubba’s best winning performance on what many would call a “tough” course (other than Augusta) was probably last year’s win at The Northern Trust Open.
Riviera’s traditional layout can be tough but Bubba won at -15 significantly beating ‘13’s score of 11under. He went 64-64 on the weekend and that’s not an easy task at Riviera.
His average non-major winning score of 14.5 bodes well for Bubba as the average winning score at The Greenbrier the last two seasons since is 14.5.
So he has that going for him.
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