Birdies with Bubba

Bubba Watson has three fears in life: darkness, heights and crowds. The first two won’t hurt you in golf. But the third seems pretty problematic because Watson, 33, is now the Masters champ and golf’s reigning stuntman, and his galleries will only grow.

Gerry Lester Watson Jr.–his dad nicknamed him Bubba for his chubby baby face–traces his ochlophobia to his father, a Green Beret who experienced hand-to-hand combat in Vietnam. Gerry Sr.’s eyes were always darting, surveilling those around him, as if he were still in the jungle. “I just built that fear,” says Watson, standing off a practice green at the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, the last big tune-up tournament before the U.S. Open, which starts June 14. “When people are all over you, screaming your name and pushing you and touching you and all that stuff, it just freaks me out.”

If Watson can calm his nerves and channel his raw, unconventional talent to clinch a few more majors, golf may have found its most compelling figure since you know who. After Tiger Woods’ fall from grace, golf fans began thirsting for a new folk hero, a player who glues eyeballs to TVs and inspires newcomers to the game. Watson, a self-made, radical swinger from the Florida Panhandle, could be their answer.

Watson is also the most inventive player in golf. He has to be, since his majestic drives often veer off course. That’s when the magic show starts. He thrives on hooking and slicing the ball around any tree, bunker or water hazard. Just watch his miracle on the second playoff hole at the Masters. Watson somehow forced a ball to fly out of the Augusta, Ga., woods, make a 40-yd. right turn and fall within 10 ft. of the cup, clinching the green jacket. “I want to try a shot that nobody can pull off,” he says. “Or just amaze people. That’s the thrill.”

His style is refreshingly free of fundamental purity. Golf is loaded with swing technicians and textbooks on how to play the game. Yet Watson has never taken a golf lesson or hired a personal coach. “The nose-thumbing determination of a nonconformist is the beauty of Bubba’s game,” says Brandel Chamblee, a Golf Channel analyst and ex–PGA Tour player.

His swing breaks nearly every rule. “I wouldn’t copy it,” says fellow Tour player Ben Curtis, with admiration, “and probably would never tell my kids to.” Watson’s feet shuffle; his hips turn too violently; his arc is wild. But his gyrations create tremendous club speed and power. On average, his drives travel 315 yd., the longest on the PGA Tour. At a pro-am round before the Memorial, his rockets produced awed responses from the gallery: “Ridiculous.” “That’s just filthy.”

Watson’s emotional reaction to his Masters win–he couldn’t stop crying–also won fans over. He was thinking of his father, who mentored him on public courses and died of throat cancer in 2010. And he was thinking of his son. Five days before he left for the Masters, Watson and his wife Angie picked up a month-old baby named Caleb, whom they had just adopted. The adoption process had been a four-year ordeal. “There are moments when you think, Maybe we’re just going to be nice to all of our friends’ kids,” he says.

After the Masters, Watson skipped the prestigious Players Championship and went almost three weeks without picking up a club. He just wanted to bond with Caleb. Watson was rusty at the Memorial and missed the cut. (A resilient Woods won it.) During a mid-May lunch in Isleworth, the exclusive gated community near Orlando where Watson is trying to buy a house–and where Woods got into his infamous car accident–Watson doted over Caleb with high-pitched calls of “Hey, buddy.”

In a sport full of robotic personalities, Watson’s goofy, fun-loving nature stands out. “Bubba is 33 going on 16,” says his agent, Jens Beck. When Watson says something he thinks is funny–even when it’s not–he nods at you as if to say, “You get me, right?” Last year, Watson and fellow American pros Rickie Fowler, Hunter Mahan and Ben Crane made a boy-band spoof video for charity. They called themselves the Golf Boys. Watson donned overalls, exposing his woolly chest, and belted out terrible rap lyrics (“Tweet, tweet, I want my birdies all day long”). The clip has been viewed over 5 million times on YouTube. At Bubba’s Bash–a charity concert he organized in Columbus, Ohio, two days before the Memorial to benefit the Bubba and Angie Watson Medical Center in Kenya–Watson hopped onstage with a Christian rap artist and showed off some of the whitest dance moves on record.

Watson’s recent ascent is especially surprising given that his career nearly imploded a couple of years ago. At the time, he was playing poorly and throwing public temper tantrums; he yelled at his caddie, cursed after wayward shots, complained about murmurs in the crowd. “I was really angry,” Watson says. “I got envy. I wasn’t being the same Bubba on the golf course as I was off the course.” A Tour player since 2006, he had 120 starts but no wins. The frustration was telling. At the 2010 Memorial, another caddie told Watson’s caddie Ted Scott, “Dude, your player is an absolute nut job.” Scott agreed. After Watson failed to qualify for the U.S. Open that year, Scott sat down with Watson at a Chipotle near Columbus and delivered an ultimatum: Tone it down or I’ll quit. “Then I thought, O.K., you’re fired,” Scott says. But Watson embraced the critique, controlled his emotions and won his first PGA tournament three weeks later.

Now Watson oozes confidence. He bounced around the Memorial with a straight back and a slight bop as if he owned the place. Those crowds, however, still spook him. After finishing the pro-am, Watson marched toward the clubhouse with a stern, unwelcoming look. “You lied to us, Bubba,” shouted a fan who was upset because Watson had promised to sign autographs after the round. “I lied?” Watson snapped back. “I’m going to sign at the putting green like I said I would all day.” (The previous night’s events didn’t help his mood: he says a car chased him home from Bubba’s Bash and he had to zigzag around the neighborhood for some 37 minutes to ditch the pursuer.)

Watson started signing but looked perturbed. A child cried after being pushed into the ropes; Watson walked back to give him his signature. “It’s sad the grownups are doing that,” Watson said. He had a point–most adult autograph hounds need to grow up. Still, Watson knows he must keep a more even keel. “You have to deal with it in a nice manner, with a smile on your face,” he says. “I have to be stronger.” Bubba Watson’s game is coming together, both on and off the course. Just when golf needs it.

SEE TIME ON GOLF AT time.com/golf