Remember When 2012 Masters Champion Bubba Watson Played At Chambers Bay?

Bubba Watson won the 2012 Masters over the weekend in an emotion-filled end to one of professional golf’s biggest showcases, capturing his first major title and cementing his place among the sport’s best.

For golf novices and newcomers, Augusta was their introduction to the Florida native.

But the South Sound had already gotten an up-close look at Watson in 2007 and 2008 in University Place, when he was part of a PGA pro foursome at the BMW Northwest Charity Skins Game at Chambers Bay Golf Course.

Patch user Dan was one of the people who saw Watson – known back then for his booming drives rather than the budding all-around game that helped him win Sunday- and he found and shared a YouTube video of Watson hitting with an iron.

“I know it's not much, and it's old,” Dan wrote, “But, it is yesterday's Masters Champion, Bubba, at Chambers Bay a few years ago (without his long hair).”

(Click on the media gallery to see that video, along with others from that competition. He's the one in the yellow shirt)

Watson played with PGA pros and South Sound natives Ryan Moore and Michael Putnam, as well as Aaron Baddeley, who won both times. The 2012 Masters champ won a few holes and skins, but the sports media at the time seemed to marvel more at his 300-plus-yard drives with Puget Sound in the background.

It was also big for , which was hosting one of its first major events with an audience at the time.

Dan and others who got to see Watson back then can now say they watched a Masters champion swing a club in their back yard. It will also be nice to reminisce when Watson returns to University Place in three years, when Chambers Bay hosts the 2015 U.S. Open.

My, how far he’s come.