Watney is looking to build on a career year
By Garrett Johnston
Davis High graduate Nick Watney is hoping to keep his consistency going as he prepares to make his second PGA Tour start of 2012 — and his first start in the continental United States — at this weekendʼs Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.
The tournament is being played at Torrey Pines, the same place where, in 2009, Watney got one of his four career event wins.
Coming of off his most successful year to date on the PGA Tour, the former Blue Devil is looking to build on his recent successes.
“I just want to keep playing well, keep contending and hopefully keep this momentum going,” Watney said last month at the Chevron World Challenge. “If I do that, good things will happen.”
The Dixon native is hoping to ride that wave of success toward some tournament wins and has a goal of making the United States’ Ryder Cup team in September.
“I would definitely like to continue winning,” Watney said. “Thatʼs how weʼre measured out here on the PGA Tour. Having played on the Presidentʼs Cup team, it would mean even more to be playing in the Ryder Cup (on U.S. soil). It would be a great experience. So I would like to keep winning and make that team.”
Watneyʼs first team competition, at the Presidentʼs Cup in November, was an enlightening experience for the 30-year-old:
“It was pretty intense down there (in Australia). From what I hear, the Ryder Cup is even more so.”
He will have to finish in the top eight in the U.S. Ryder Cup rankings to qualify automatically, and four captain’s picks will round out the 12-man team. Either way, Watney knows the best way to earn a coveted spot is by winning this season on tour.
Another major event that Watney has his eye on is the U.S. Open in June. With the tournament being contested locally — at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, a course that he has played many times — Watney has a good chance of performing well. But he is quick to caution that the weather can affect play on what it already a daunting golf course.
“The air is pretty heavy there,” Watney said. “I just played there a few months ago and itʼs a very difficult course. I think itʼll be a great test.”
The Olympic Club marks the closest the U.S. Open will ever be to Watney’s hometown. The tournament is staged on a different American golf course each year, and is open to any golfer who can make it through the difficult qualifying rounds.
The even-keeled Watney, a big San Francisco 49ers and Giants fan, is anticipating his brief visit “home.”
“Itʼs the closest (the U.S. Open) will get to Dixon, so Iʼm sure thereʼll be a lot of people supporting me,” he said. “Iʼm looking forward to having a lot of friends and family there.”
Speaking of family, Watneyʼs father Brent noted recently that Nick has been “grinding” too much during the major championships. That’s golfer’s lingo for pressing and not letting the game come to him.
Watney has mentioned to his father that he wants his game to peak for the majors, and The Masters in April and the U.S. Open in June would be the first chances to do so.
Brent said the Watneys are all looking forward to the U.S. Open and Ryder Cup. At many of the bigger tour events, such as major championships, Nickʼs dad, mom Debbie and sister Kristen are there to cheer him on.
“Thereʼs always something to look forward to!” Brent exclaimed recently from Hawaii. “As far as his folks are concerned, we are just having so much fun watching the process.”
Brent looks at his sonʼs 2012 year on tour as “another new season of gray hairs for dear old dad.”
Nick has jokingly lamented that his father is the “nervous Nelly” of the Watney camp, and so he gives a measured response to Dad’s implication of stress.
“Iʼm going to focus on golf,” Watney said. “I think that is the main thing. But in the end, it is just golf. So thatʼs how Iʼll try and view it.”
— Garrett Johnston is a sports writer and video producer based in Sacramento. He has been covering the PGA Tour for the past seven years, and has followed Watney closely for the past two.
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on Jan 24 2012.
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