Augusta, GA – Bubba Watson struggled over his first two rounds at Augusta National in defense of his first green jacket, but bounced back with a solid third round on Saturday.
Watson, who squeaked into the weekend just on the cut line at plus-4 following rounds of 75-73, carded a 2-under 70 on Saturday despite a double bogey at the par-4 11th.
His bounce-back round started strong, as he hit his second shot at the first to within 10 feet and converted the birdie effort to quickly get on the board.
He followed that with a 2-putt birdie at the second and added another birdie putt at the third.
After parring the next six holes, Watson opened his back nine by rolling in a birdie putt from about 10 feet to move to 4-under on the day.
He quickly gave two of those strokes back, however, as he followed that by hitting his second shot at the 11th into the water en route to his second double bogey in as many days at that hole.
He lost another stroke with a bogey at the 13th, but was able to regain some momentum with back-to-back birdies at the 15th and 16th before closing with a bogey at the last.
Even with his best round of the week, Watson still sits at 2-over for the tournament and eight strokes behind second-round leader Jason Day, who is at 6-under and will tee off later Saturday.
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