Bubba Goes Elk Hunting

by Mulligan Stu on Mar 28, 2008 8:43 PM EDT Comment 2 comments

Zurich Classic Playing partners Bubba Watson and Steve Elkington will not be exchanging Christmas cards:

Instances of on-course incidents are fairly rare between golfers, but there was one in Friday's second round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Bubba Watson and Steve Elkington exchanged words on the 10th hole and requested a rules official come into the scorer's tent to resolve the flap.

According to Shigeki Maruyama, who was the third player in the group, Watson was upset Thursday when he thought Elkington and his caddie were walking in Watson's line in the fairway and making noise.

Watson apparently did not say anything the first day, but on Friday there were words exchanged between the players on the 10th hole.

"A couple of F-words by Bubba," Maruyama said.

Hmmm, french fries maybe? I now officially love - in a platonic sense! - Shigeki Muruyama:

When Maruyama came out of the scorer's tent, he was smiling and started shadow-boxing before saying, "big problem."

There's probably not anything that could keep Shigeki from smiling. He's like the Jimin Kang of the PGA Tour.

Elkington refused to shake hands with Watson's caddie, and left the final green without acknowledging Watson.

Watson later apologized for the language, and likely will face a fine. But given the reputations of the players involved, I'd bet the mortgage (whatever that's worth these days) that Bubba was the one in the right.

Update: After reading a bit more about this (especially here) it's apparent to me now that I was a bit too harsh on Elkington in the original post above. Elk may deserve criticism too, but sounds like Watson escalated things beyond the pointed they needed to go.

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Shigeki rules!

Man, I wish 1/10th of his personality and sense of humor in Japanese would come across in English. Until his game went south, he was on all the talk/comedy shows on Japanese tv; even in the midst of his recent slide, last summer there was still hilarious stuff like the top-rated psychic giving him golf/life advice.

by The Constructivist on Mar 28, 2008 11:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs