Bubba Watson is like no one you've ever seen on the golf course before, and at the same time he's like everyone you've ever seen on the golf course before.

He hits the ball a country mile and then some, and he can shape shots the way very few people who ever played the game can. He's one of those guys, like Arnold Palmer, Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson, or (at one time) Tiger Woods, that can not only pull off shots that the rest of us wouldn't even dare to try, but almost make them look effortless in even the most tense of situations.

But at the same time, most people know guys like Bubba. He a southern guy that says "ya'll" a lot, and he instinctively drops his g's when he's tellin' the media about the day he had playin' golf. He's got a self-taught, slightly goofy swing that must make professional swing coaches watching at home just cringe on every shot.

Off the course, he plays video games. He makes funny videos to put on his Twitter feed. He owns every single season of the Dukes of Hazzard on DVD. Heck, he even bought the General Lee. Not a replica either, but the REAL General Lee - the one that jumped the creek during the opening credits of every episode.

He has fun. He plays fearless. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He has plenty of sponsors (and he's probably about to land a lot more), but he's not the polished, sponsor-driven corporate type.

He's just Bubba, and he might have just become the most popular golfer in the world.

It's not just that he won arguably the biggest golf tournament in the world this past Sunday, it's how he won it.

Early on Sunday, playing in the penultimate group of the day, Watson three-putted for bogey on the very first hole, then watched his playing partner Louis Oosthuizen record only the fourth double-eagle in Masters history to vault past Mickelson and third round leader Peter Hanson into the lead.

Even though Watson battled back to birdie No. 2 and No. 5, he was having no luck at all catching up to Oosthuizen because the former British Open champion was playing a round worthy of a major champion.

With his syrupy-smooth swing and clutch putting, Oosthuizen was fending off all challengers, including Mickelson, Hanson, Lee Westwood, and Matt Kuchar, who briefly caught Oosthuizen with an eagle at the par-5 15th hole. But Kuchar gave up the lead with a bogey one hole later, and he fell two shots back when Oosthuizen birdied No. 15.

Kuchar finished in a four-way tie for third with Hanson, Mickelson, and Westwood. Hanson bogeyed two of his first three holes on the day and never recovered, Mickelson took an unfathomable six at the par-3 No. 4 hole and couldn't overcome it, while Westwood's backside 32 turned out to be too little too late.

And after a bogey on the par-3 No. 12 hole at Amen Corner, it looked as though Watson would have to settle for trying to split the third-place money as well.

That's when Watson gave everyone a lesson in what he calls "Bubba Golf".

Playing with his trademark "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" style, he fired at the flags and birdied 13, 14, 15, and 16 to finally tie Oosthuizen at 10-under par and eventually force a sudden death playoff.

After both golfers just missed birdies on the first playoff hole at 18, they walked over the 10th tee and Watson promptly pulled out his now-famous pink driver and sent a monster drive careening deep into the woods to the right. It came to rest just over 150 yards from the flag, but on top of an Augusta National salad of pine needles and decaying leaves with a tall grove of Georgia pines and a television tower blocking a clear path to the green.

In Bubba Golf terms, it was a perfect lie.

Watson spotted a gap through the top of the trees, grabbed a wedge, and hooked a shot some 40 yards to the left, bending it around the trees and the tower and nestling it hole high just 12 feet away from the pin while the overflow Augusta crowd simply went into a state of delirium.

Oosthuizen, who had to scramble on the hole after a poor drive, nearly holed out a tough par putt that would have forced Watson to sink his birdie putt to win. But Oosthuizen's putt slid just to the right of the hole by a hair, opening the door for Watson's two-putt for par to claim his first green jacket.

Then those emotions that Watson unashamedly wears on his sleeve found their way to his face and started pouring out of his eyes. He grabbed his caddie and cried, then continued the hugs and tears with his mom, no doubt thinking of his father, who passed away after a bout with lung cancer in October of 2010, and thinking of his wife Angie back home in Orlando with the couple's newborn son, Caleb, whom they just adopted just two weeks ago.

The 2012 Masters was perhaps the most anticipated edition of the tournament in recent memory with big name after big name arriving in Augusta playing well. Names like Woods, Mickelson, Westwood, Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald, and Hunter Mahan were the ones expected to be left standing at the top of the leaderboard when the back nine began to heat up on Sunday.

Instead, Sunday became the day when the world of golf found its new folk hero, and a guy named Bubba left Georgia after winning the biggest tournament in the world.

It just doesn't get any more perfect than that.

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Scott Herpst is the Sports Editor of the Walker County Messenger.