Buzzer Beater - Major title brings back minor memories

Buzzer Beater

Major title brings back minor memories

By RYAN COOKE

This past weekend, American golfer Bubba Watson spoke the words which are likely to become some of the most famous words in sports history.

Just moments before being handed the treasured green jacket for winning the Master’s tournament on a thrilling playoff hole, he was asked if he had any words to explain how he felt.

He paused for what seemed like minutes, before finally coming up with something.

“I never made it this far in my dreams.”

As a journalist, a sentence like that turns on more bells and whistles in your head than a winning slot machine at a casino. It’s a golden quote, a story in itself.

I instantly picked up my phone, went to Twitter and sent it out. Within moments of him saying it, hundreds upon hundreds of people had tweeted the exact same line.

Something about those words resonated with the entire audience.

Watson, more commonly and amicably referred to as Bubba, came into the tournament riding high. He and his wife had just adopted their first child, after planning it for over a year.

But you can rest assured that wasn’t the only thing on his mind heading into the final hole.

In October 2010, Watson lost his father to throat cancer. The senior Bubba Watson had been a Green Beret and a Vietnam veteran, who one day handed his six-year-old son a nine iron and said, “I’m going in the woods to find my ball. You whack this one down the fairway as far as you can.”

The rest was history.

As Watson found himself buried in the forest after his tee shot in the playoff hole, it’s like everything came full circle. He was now the father rooting through the trees for his ball.

Faced with a near impossible shot, Watson made the moment even more magical. He hooked the ball out of the weeds, over the trees, across the fairway and onto the green. It was one of the most amazing shots in Master’s history, and put him just feet away from tapping home the championship.

It was a Hollywood moment; the type of moment where you’re alone on the couch and you jump to your feet, accidentally letting out a yelp of excitement. Like when the Americans beat the Soviets in Miracle, or when Scott Hatteberg hits the walk-off homerun in Moneyball.

These are the moments that make professional sports a spectacle. They’re captured on live television, talked about for years, put into film and immortalized. We all feel a part of it.

The truth is everyone has moments like that. It might not be in the Master’s, but the feeling is the same. I scored the overtime winner in a Summer Games ball hockey gold medal game when I was 15. My line mate literally shot the ball at me and banked it into the net, but I celebrated the hell out of it like it was the most glorious goal in the history of hockey.

Every beer league athlete has one of those moments that they love to brag about in the shed on a Friday night. As he proudly rambles on, all of his buddies neglect to remind him it was 20 years and 50 pounds ago, in division “F” minor hockey. Just let him have his moment.

It’s like David Bowie sings, “We could be heroes, just for one day.”

It feels good, no matter how small the scale.

That’s why Twitter exploded with Bubba Watson quotes. We all saw that magic, and felt it right along with him. It feels good to see a deserving contender win on such a large scale, just as good as it feels to win on your own scale. And so we can relate to athletes like Bubba Watson, even though we’re probably not nearly as rich or privileged.

As Bubba said, you can only dream so far into the moment. When you finally experience it, it’s the greatest thing in the world.

Congrats Bubba, and thanks for reminding us what it feels like to be a hero.