Overhead photo of Bubba's screaming hook that won the Masters

[Joe Stansell]

DMoriarty,

I think you and I are saying the same thing.  Your added perspective is very well done. Thanks.

My original point for jumping into this thread was not to say that I know exactly where Bubba was at when he hit his shot, and I definitely don't know the angle of ball flight. I'll I was trying to say was that I'm damn certain it wasn't as depicted in the photo that opened this thread -- which unfortunately will become part of the "lore," as a copy of it even made it into today's Global Golf Post.

And it is for that reason that I'm also in full agreement with Kirk's point: while Bubba's shot was truly heroic under the circumstances, it didn't somehow defy the law of physics, as that photo implied.

[jeffwarne]

Based on the new location, this is probably more realistic flight path for the ball.

In the screen shot though, doesn't it look like he is at least halfway down the bunker? You are looking at the very front of the bunker. The tv shots from behind the green makes it look like it is farther down as well.  Also if you look at the grass/pine straw line, it looks pretty close to parallel to his ball rather than at 45 degrees (not sure I said that right).

I'd say the recent pictures are getting closer to what I witnessed.
He was definitely at the beginning of the Mackenzie bunker.
I would still say he curved it at least 40 yards, especially counting bounce and roll

[RJ_Daley]

With all of these poster's persistence, I think since Tony's post, and Kalen and David's additions, we have it pretty well nailed down.  And, certainly Tony's statement that the telling of the legend of Bubba in the woods, may diminish what needs no embellishment. It was a gusty play, as explained of all the Bubba jokes it risked, had he failed badly and hit it straight into the opposite woods, dead.  It deserves a plaque, IMO.  

But, can you imagine the practice tees at subsequent tour stops when Bubba is warming up?  100s of overserved Bubba gumps, cat calling: "do it agin Bubba, do it agin - hit that big ol drawr".  

[Kalen Braley]

Not that we needed anymore evidence, but Joes picture clearly shows Bubba opening is at least 20-30 feet before the TV stand:



This aerial, shows where the stand is in relation to the bunker and confirms where Bubba's ball was:

[Jay Flemma]

Damn, you guys are good!

[Patrick_Mucci]

RJ,

I disagree with you.

This was sudden death and as such, I don't thing Bubba had much choice.

Playing for an up and down par on that hole/green would most likely produce a bogey.

It had to be all or nothing.

In addition, that shot was in his wheelhouse, so why play safe.

I thought I taught you and the Sarge about playing strategies in Gottenburg and Mullen.
Evidently you've forgotten the lessons.

[Doug Siebert]

Patrick,

Why would playing for an up and down par be a bad thing when your opponent is already in such a situation short of the green?  If someone else had been faced with that situation, and tried to play a more conservative small hook a bit short/left of the green then it would have been down to an up and down contest between the two.  Considering how it looked after Bubba hit into the trees, even getting back to an even chance would be a deal most pros would have happily accepted.

[Jim Nugent]

Did Bubba say how confident he was of pulling off the shot?  Hit and pray for a miracle, or did he feel comfortable he could get on or around the green? 

[Bryan Izatt]

A belated attempt at the trajectory.  From this Masters photo, the pin was back centre.  The TV camera tower is on the right side of the fairway near the mid point of the Mackenzie bunker.  The scoreboard is in the pine straw to the left and short of the green.



The camera tower was located as shown in this aerial.



The video of the playoff shows Bubba exiting the rough with the tower on his right, so he was further back toward the tee.  Bubba also said it was 155 yards to the pin - presumably on a straight line.  This more or less defines where he started from.

In the picture from behind Bubba in the pine straw, the scoreboard is visible just over the heads of the people at the end on the crowd on the left.  He appears to be aiming to the right of the scoreboard.  Given the points above this suggests that the part of the Mackenzie bunker visible is the green side end of it.



The video of the playoff shows the ball in the air as seen from behind the green.  The ball appears to be coming from the Mackenzie bunker.  It lands about a third of the way up the green and then zips to the right and towards the back of the green.  I'd guesstimate that it carried 140 yards in the air and rolled out another 10 yards or so.

Using all the above, I think the trajectory was something like the yellow line below.  T is for the TV tower.  The scoreboard is marked.  The straight line to the hole in white is 155 yards.  The blue line indicates the amount of the hook - approximately 45 yards.



Although a remarkable shot in the circumstances, it does not appear to me to be out of the context of Bubba's normal penchant for moving the ball.  As for the risk - Louis was already short and faced with a tough up and down.  Worst case Bubba hits is straight and ends up in the rough or pine straw left of the green with probably no tougher an up and down as faced by Louis.

 

[Jim Nugent]

Bryan, I think Bubba was both further in the woods and closer to the green than your picture shows.  Further in because I counted the number of steps he took to get to his ball, once on the pine needles.  (You can see this in the longer videos.)  He took over 20 steps, and that was with him already in several yards.  So I suspect he was 20 to 25 yards into the woods and on the pine needles, possibly a little more. 

I think he was closer to the green because another picture (courtesy Joe through Kalen) shows the corridor the crowd made for Bubba's shot.  it is maybe 7-8 yards away from the TV tower.  That ties in with what Jeff Warne, who was there, said, that Bubba was even with the beginning of the Mackenzie bunker.  btw, that same picture shows the fans looking deep into the woods to watch Bubba. 

So my guess is to take your starting point, and draw a 45-55 degree line up to the right, till it just about reaches the start of the Mac bunker. 

[Sean Leary]

Bryan, I think Bubba was both further in the woods and closer to the green than your picture shows.  Further in because I counted the number of steps he took to get to his ball, once on the pine needles.  (You can see this in the longer videos.)  He took over 20 steps, and that was with him already in several yards.  So I suspect he was 20 to 25 yards into the woods and on the pine needles, possibly a little more. 

I think he was closer to the green because another picture (courtesy Joe through Kalen) shows the corridor the crowd made for Bubba's shot.  it is maybe 7-8 yards away from the TV tower.  That ties in with what Jeff Warne, who was there, said, that Bubba was even with the beginning of the Mackenzie bunker.  btw, that same picture shows the fans looking deep into the woods to watch Bubba. 

So my guess is to take your starting point, and draw a 45-55 degree line up to the right, till it just about reaches the start of the Mac bunker. 

I counted steps too and think he was farther in as well, and a little bit closer...

[jeffwarne]

Bryan, I think Bubba was both further in the woods and closer to the green than your picture shows.  Further in because I counted the number of steps he took to get to his ball, once on the pine needles.  (You can see this in the longer videos.)  He took over 20 steps, and that was with him already in several yards.  So I suspect he was 20 to 25 yards into the woods and on the pine needles, possibly a little more.  

I think he was closer to the green because another picture (courtesy Joe through Kalen) shows the corridor the crowd made for Bubba's shot.  it is maybe 7-8 yards away from the TV tower.  That ties in with what Jeff Warne, who was there, said, that Bubba was even with the beginning of the Mackenzie bunker.  btw, that same picture shows the fans looking deep into the woods to watch Bubba.  

So my guess is to take your starting point, and draw a 45-55 degree line up to the right, till it just about reaches the start of the Mac bunker.  

I counted steps too and and I think he was further in as well and a little bit closer
Sean




He was farther in and slightly closer than Bryan's last photo-the tower was in his way (the tower is closer to the green than you've drawn it (about 35-40% of the way down the Mackenzie bunker)

Take a wedge and see how much ou can hook it-probably not 40 yards,but let's assume you can
Then see if you can start it EXACTLY where you want.
Those who think this shot wasn't a big deal are either REALLY good (and just moonlighting here on GCA ) or really don't have a clue as to the difficulty of that shot through a long narrow chute of people then bending perfectly and going the exact distance
jeff

[Bryan Izatt]

Jim,

He may have been further into the pine straw but not a whole lot closer to the green.  If he was at an angle of 45* from where I placed him then he wouldn't have had 155 yards to the pin.  But he could have been further to the right of where I placed him and had 155 yards in.

I take Jeff at his word that Bubba was near the beginning of the bunker.  But that depends on what angle Jeff was looking from.

So, I'd say maybe 10 yards further in and 5 yards closer to the green than I marked.


Jeff,

The "T" for the tower should be maybe 5 yards closer to the green and maybe on the white line.  Below is a bird's eye view where I've circled the tower location in red.  The yellow circle is the behind-the green camera tower.  The blue "X" marks  my best guess of the spot of the shot.

In the interview he said the tower was in his line of sight to the pin, but he didn't want to ask for relief because he liked the look of the draw ..... hook .... shot.  That alignment says he must have been a little right of where I marked him, but not a whole lot.

The second picture below is a screen shot of Bubba exiting the pine straw.  The camera tower is obvious and appears to be 20 yards or more away from him, so it doesn't make sense that he was substantially closer to the green than I marked him.  Also, you can see the behind-the-green camera tower circled in yellow in both pictures.  Aligning Bubba emerging from the straw and the two camera towers suggests he was coming out near where I marked him, albeit probably from further in.

As to hitting 45 yard hooks, I can attest to having done it with wedges in hand a couple of times in the last couple of days.  Not by design, and with no control and aided and abetted (or punished) by a quartering into 40 mph wind.  But then I have no delusions of being a Bubba-quality player.      On the other hand, Bubba and other tour level players can probably pull off that shot with some degree of success a fair amount of the time.  It was remarkable in the circumstances. 

[Jim Nugent]

Bryan, the various pictures are not clear cut to me.  i.e. they don't all point to one definitive location.  e.g. take the first picture in your last post.  You marked a blue X where you think Bubba played his shot from.  The problem is, that puts him even with two trees that are in the rough, between the fairway and the pine needles.  Actually, even a little behind those trees (i.e. closer to the tee). 

But other pictures clearly show he was far beyond those trees.  Look at the picture in Kalen's post.  Those two trees are far closer to the tee than Bubba's corridor and ball.  The tower is far closer to the corridor than the trees are. 

So my guess still is that he was closer to the green.  The picture in Tony Muldoon's post #95 seems to me most likely. 

[Bryan Izatt]

Jim,

I agree it's not clear cut.  It's difficult to place it because of the oblique angles in many of the pictures.

I don't think that the picture Tony posted has got it right.  The blue line showing the flight trajectory would have passed to the right of the camera tower or possibly directly over it, which clearly didn't happen.




There appears to be about 30 yards between the camera tower and the two smaller trees.  The opening in Kalen's picture looks about half way, so say 15 yards from the camera tower.  Does the picture of Bubba coming out of the pine straw look like he's 15 yards from the tower?  Or further?  I can't reconcile those two pictures.







Here's another one from behind Bubba and lower down and a bit to the right.  I've circled the two smaller pines.  He certainly looks to be at least parallel or maybe even on the tee side of those two trees.  But again the oblique angle makes it tough to judge.

[Sean Leary]

I can't figure it out. I agree with Jim that it looks like he is beyond those two trees in the rough (you can see a bunch of people lined down the roughline beyond the trees). But based on Bryans overhead, there is a huge tree blocking that goes to the ground where I would think he would be.

The other thing is that when you pick up the ball on the telecast, it doesn't look like it is hooking THAT much which leads me to believe that Bryan's spot is correct, even though my eyes tell me otherwise.

Somebody needs to play there and give us the real scoop.

[RJ_Daley]

I think I just realized one problem with evaluating the position based on going back and forth between screen shots of the actual event and the immediate time that Bubba hit the shot, and the overhead Google and Bing aerials.  The aerials are years apart.  Look at this one that I think has the position pretty close to accurate (perhaps 5 yards deeper in from the right top of the blue  X marks Bubba's spot) and the screen shot from Kalen;






Look at the caliper-diameter or the two small planted trees in the aerial, and the way they look now.  Or more dramatic, look at the diameter of the larger tree above the dude in the Augusta green jacket and the trooper's heads, and the smaller diameter on the aerial.  That seems to be a lot of growth.  Even though the Bing aerial seems to be taken prior to one of the yearly tournament's set up as you can see stands errected on 17 if you zoom the shot by going to the actual Bing map web page of that area.

So, some confusion still exists, although I think I am pretty confident I understand where Bubba was and it was a great shot...

[Bryan Drennon]

I'm gonna do everybody a favor. The original pic isn't close.



The person that posted this pic is almost dead on.



I've added a yellow circle for the 1st small pine tree in the grass. His ball was directly across from it about 15 yards or so in the pinestraw (about where he put the blue x but maybe a little closer to that circled tree). I also added a green box which identifies a large green plate that is in the ground to show the line of the shot and also help show where the ball actually ended up. The third thing I added is a blue circle to show the end of the bunker. This is where everyone has it wrong.



You are looking at the end of the bunker in the pic above, not the middle of it. Another way of identifying the spot is by the very large magnolia he is hooking it around. Look just below and left of the blue x in the middle pic. Thats the magnolia and its the only one that size in the area.

[Sean Leary]

That certainly makes the most sense. The damn shot was almost straight

Still amazing that the pics caused that much confusion...

[Carl Nichols]

Bryan,
Seems like if you were to take your overhead and draw a straight line from your blue X, through the green box, and into the bunker, you end up farther back in the bunker than would be true if the blue circle in the picture is really the end of the bunker.

[jeffwarne]

I'm gonna do everybody a favor. The original pic isn't close.



The person that posted this pic is almost dead on.



I've added a yellow circle for the 1st small pine tree in the grass. His ball was directly across from it about 15 yards or so in the pinestraw (about where he put the blue x but maybe a little closer to that circled tree). I also added a green box which identifies a large green plate that is in the ground to show the line of the shot and also help show where the ball actually ended up. The third thing I added is a blue circle to show the end of the bunker. This is where everyone has it wrong.



You are looking at the end of the bunker in the pic above, not the middle of it. Another way of identifying the spot is by the very large magnolia he is hooking it around. Look just below and left of the blue x in the middle pic. Thats the magnolia and its the only one that size in the area.

I'd say that's about right

[Bryan Drennon]

Bryan,
Seems like if you were to take your overhead and draw a straight line from your blue X, through the green box, and into the bunker, you end up farther back in the bunker than would be true if the blue circle in the picture is really the end of the bunker.

I agree with you. The blue x was not mine, I only added to someone else's picture. I also mentioned that the actual shot was closer to the circled tree than the blue x. Just for arguments sake, I added my own pink x and included the flight lines. Another thing to look at is the tv tower (red circle). Bubba mentioned that he might have been able to drop away from it since it was technically in his direct line. He would have had to go through the middle of that magnolia tree, so I assume he felt that wouldn't have gotten the drop. 



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[Steve Lang]

  Look at marshalling guy in yellow shirt on left side of path, about 6 folks between him and Trooper, maybe another 5-6 to parallel with Bubba,  thenin other photo, maybe 10 folks fromyellow shirt guy to edge of pines staw and green grass, so maybe 20-25 folks along edge watching.. 2 ft max spacing = 40-50 ft max from fairway, I'd think closer to 40 ft or like 13-14 yards in...from fairway