Bubba Watson hits 376-yard drive to start final round at The Memorial

If there’s any doubt Bubba Watson is still one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour, he put it to bed off the first tee on Sunday.

Bubba Watson is two-time Masters champion, and routinely one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour going back awhile. But he has not won a tournament in over a year, and over that time he has not really been in contention on a Sunday.

That latter point has changed this week, with Watson entering the final round of The Memorial at -9 and clearly in the thick of things. He ended his Saturday round of  68 (-4) with a nice birdie at 18, amid a heckler’s drunken ramblings.

On the first tee Sunday afternoon, Watson kept the momentum from Saturday going with a huge drive right down the middle of the fairway. He even fooled the cameraman, for a moment.

With a 376-yard blast off the tee at No. 1, Watson left himself with less than 100 yards to the flag. Somehow though, he did not make birdie (what’s that they say about driving for show and putting for dough?). But he followed that up by launching another big drive on No. 2, only 340 yards that time, and converted a birdie putt.

The Memorial is currently in a weather delay during Sunday’s final round, as rain descends on Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio. Watson is through 11 holes in a group of four golfers at -10, two shots back of leader Rickie Fowler.

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Watson conquered a heckler, and seems back in some sort of stride as a boomer off the tee able to hit it where he can find it. No matter how things play out over the rest of Sunday, those things are victories and Watson may be rounding into form just in time for the U.S. Open in a couple weeks.