DETROIT — One community is nestled along the Gulf of Mexico, its sandy white beaches and sunny climes a winter retreat for hockey-loving northerners.
The other community … well, it’s comprised of the aforementioned northerners.
But if you ask PGA Tour star Bubba Watson, there are common threads running through the cities of Pensacola, Florida and Detroit. Watson, who was a driving force behind a new nine-hole charity exhibition at Detroit Golf Club, happens to be one of them. He’s a recognizable name working to invest into the community in which he was reared.
And he said on Wednesday he’s modeled his investments in Pensacola after what Quicken Loans/Rocket Mortgage founder Daniel Gilbert has done in Detroit.
Gilbert is the richest person in Michigan with a net worth of $6.5 billion, and he’s been adamant about investing large sums back into the Detroit area.
Meanwhile, Watson, who has made over $45 million on the PGA Tour, has tried to follow in the same vein, albeit at a smaller level — opening an ice cream shop in downtown Pensacola and purchasing a car dealership in Milton. In 2017, Watson donated $1.6 million to The Studer Family Children’s Hospital. He became an owner of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, a Double-A franchise in the Southern League.
Investing in Pensacola wasn’t an automatic decision for Watson once he’d achieved success on the PGA Tour; he took his time in finding sensible opportunities and reliable partners to work with.
He feels like that’s akin to Gilbert’s efforts in the Motor City.
“When you think about what Dan Gilbert has done for Detroit, there’s a lot of avenues he’s touched and been a part of in a great way; his companies, him, personally, all those things,” Watson said. “And when I think about what I want to do for Pensacola, I learned from people like him. So when you think about what he’s done and tried to do for Detroit, I want to do that in a smaller way in Pensacola, where I was born and raised and now live.”
Gilbert was a driving force behind the Rocket Mortgage Classic moving to Detroit Golf Club, a Donald Ross design, in 2019, and Watson wanted to be part of the fun. Last year, the lefty bomber missed the cut, but he still enjoyed the experience, and wanted to make a bigger splash this year at Gilbert’s event.
“I learn from people like him through different tournaments, different pro-ams, and when he wanted to put this tournament here in Detroit, I was all in. Owning a car dealership with Chevy, GM being up here, there was just so many angles that just touched my heart,” Watson said. “And what he’s been able to accomplish on and off, charity dollars and business-wise, it was a no-brainer for me. And then when the Tour, I took the idea to the Tour, they blessed me with the opportunity.
“Obviously, with the Rocket Mortgage team behind us, they let us do it and run wild with it. So it was a dream come true that they let me do it.”
If Watson wants more cash to invest in Pensacola, he’ll will need to ramp up his game, which has slipped a bit in the past two weeks after a strong post-break start when he went T-7 at the Charles Schwab Challenge. In the past two weeks, Bubba finished T-52 at the RBC Heritage and then missed the cut at the Travelers Championship.
But this week, Watson started off strong with the exhibition win, something he hopes will carry over into Thursday’s play. He tees off at 12:50 p.m. in a featured group with Brendon Todd and Jason Day.
“I’ve been hitting it good. I missed the cut last week, I just putted — I hit a lot of lip-outs. So I actually feel like I putted well, stats don’t show that, and I think I hit it well last week. So I really feel good,” Watson said. “This is going into my, what, fourth week in a row. I really feel good about my game and I’m confident where I’m at. Obviously, we’ve still got to score, though, so we’ve got to somehow get that ball in the hole.”
