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NORTHERN TRUST OPEN

February 20, 2016

Bubba Watson

Pacific Palisades, California

Q. Give us a quick assessment of your round and the up-and-down at the last.
BUBBA WATSON: Yeah, the up-and-down was nice. You have the ability to do it, but at that moment, can you do it. The joke was when I got on the green is Leishman's caddie was up there getting the flag and I said, who cares about the shot, I've got to make this putt or it's not worth anything.

That was the toughest part because nobody expected me to hit the shot that good, and then the putt, so everybody expects to you make the putt. Would be kind of lost if I missed that putt.

Q. Generally happy with the day?
BUBBA WATSON: Very happy. Any day you can shoot under par around this golf course -- the last few days have been good. It's all about the steadiness on the greens. Working really hard to make sure I don't lose anything from three-foot and in because you can easily do it here. Can easily bounce one way or the other if you lose a little focus.

Q. Going into tomorrow with the lead on a course you like, you have to like your chances?
BUBBA WATSON: As my ego is, we all feel good about our chances, even the guy that's five back. For me, yeah, I'm going to go out and try to do the same thing, keep my head down, try to take deep breaths and try to slow it down and hopefully it works out with one or two pars and one or two birdies gives me the victory.

Q. Do you look at leaderboards?
BUBBA WATSON: Always look at leaderboards.

Q. You've stayed patient. You didn't seem to press and kind of glided along.
BUBBA WATSON: The three-week stretch has been tough. I have pressed a lot in Phoenix. I still finished 14th. There was a lot of negative vibes out there, I don't know if you're heard. (Laughter).

And so then going back to Pebble, there was other courses, too, but Pebble, it was very difficult because I haven't been there in so many years, so you press there. You get excited and you want to do so well. I made the cut. Made the cut and missed the cut at the same time last week.

Then coming here, you know, I knew I was hitting the ball well. I love this place. I feel good around this place. So it's working out so far. I just made a couple putts. Phoenix, I didn't make too many putts. Pebble I didn't make very many putts, so the score shows it. But then around here, I haven't made too many mistakes on the greens.

Q. How much do you draw, if anything, having won here before?
BUBBA WATSON: Well, the benefit is I know I can do it. I know I can go bogey-free because when I won here, I did it over the weekend, and knowing that I can make putts around here, and knowing that the holes -- there's a couple tough holes for me, but all in all, most of them are good for me, good fit for me.

And so the wind direction on a couple of the holes makes it tough. But overall, knowing that I've won here and knowing that I can play around here, obviously I have a little bit of an advantage on the guy that probably hasn't won here.

Q. Do you feel the positive energy that you seem to have out here? Seems like the fans really get into it and like it. Does that make a difference to you?
BUBBA WATSON: It's better than booing me. It's better than booing me because a headline was wrong. Around here I guess being a past champion here, they respect it. They know you can play and they appreciate a past champion around here, just like any golf tournament would.

Q. When you were watching leaderboards out there, does it change your mentality, change your strategy, when you see either your name at the top or a bunch players that are all bunched up together?
BUBBA WATSON: I mean around here, or any golf tournament, for me personally, it's the Top-10. To win, there's going to have to be a lot of things go your way, like getting up-and-down on 18, something crazy like that. Chip-in; you're going to have to do something, because it's one bounce one way or the other to win or lose, so a Top-10 is what I always look at.

When I make a bogey and still see I'm Top-10, it keeps me going, or how close I am to a Top-10, and then obviously when you get around the lead, you perk up a little bit, a little bit of energy comes through you.

Today it helped a lot, because today there was a couple times that, I don't know how, but we lost some people and it was slower today than it was the first two days. A couple times we had to wait on a tee box, my body got tight and I shoved some out, and seeing that leaderboard, seeing I was right there, just as long as I could keep it together, yeah, it pushes you along and it let's you really hone in your skills hopefully, and it turned out a good score today.

Q. Do you have a number in mind for tomorrow?
BUBBA WATSON: One better than -- I don't care if it's an 80. If everybody else shoots 81 -- or you know what, I hope everybody ties me and they all shoot 80. The doesn't matter to me. It's about lifting the trophy. It was 10-under or if it was 10-over, it doesn't matter.

Q. Clippers and Warriors tonight, do you have a rooting interest for either team?
BUBBA WATSON: That's the advantage is that I'm friends with a lot of the guys, friends with Steve Ballmer, I don't know if you know him, he's the owner of the Clippers.

And it was -- so for me, it's a win/win, seeing the good play at basketball and y'all are holding me up from getting there.

Q. Are you going to get there for the pregame?
BUBBA WATSON: I always want to get there.

Q. You've done a lot of fun things off the course this week, what's been the highlight?
BUBBA WATSON: It's a funny one. I did some good stuff. I was in a TV show, did some things like that. The funny one was watching my boy with Justin Bieber and watching him react. All he knows is he's a singer and dancer. He doesn't know who he is. He's about to turn four. So watching him rehearse his concerts coming up, seeing his moves and stuff and I have a video where Caleb slid down the stage like Justin did. That's got to be the highlight is watching the kid grow up in Justin, but also watching my son just react to him in a positive light, it was pretty neat.

Q. Can you tell us about the TV show?
BUBBA WATSON: Girl Meets World. I've got it on my phone right now. I've got 48 episodes of Boy Meets World on my phone. When I'm on the airplane, that's what I watch. It's a good quality show. You learn a lesson, but it's where everybody in the family can watch it. And so Girl Meets World, the advantage came up where somebody asked me if I wanted to be on the show and I said yeah. They were not going to give me a line and then they gave me line. That was 900.

Q. What was the line?
BUBBA WATSON: I can't tell you all that. It was one take, actually. But they always do -- well, let's do it again, just to be sure. I did it four times. I think it was myself -- I was holding a golf club. Hopefully I wasn't somebody else.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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