Watson routs Kisner to win WGC-Dell match play

Bubba Watson beat Kevin Kisner 7 and 6 in Sunday’s final to win the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event at the Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas.

The battle of fellow Americans and former Georgia Bulldogs was never a contest, with Watson winning the first five holes and going 6-up through seven. Kisner, who needed 19 holes to beat Alex Noren during the semifinals in the morning, appeared drained as he topped the 100-hole mark for the week, while Watson put it on cruise control early after dispatching of Justin Thomas 3 and 2 in the morning.

It is the second victory of the year for Watson, the 39th-ranked player in the world who also won the Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club last month. He tied for ninth in the previous WGC event this year in Mexico, and now has 11 career PGA Tour titles.

“It’s one of those things, I got off to a hot start, and I’m just focused on golf,” a teery-eyed Watson told NBC Sports after closing out his match. “Obviously, hugging my mom just then … she said I was good, but I said, ‘without you I’m nothing, you know.’ Without my mom’s upbringing, who knows what I’d be doing, so it’s all credit to her.”

Kisner didn’t win a hole until rolling in a birdie on the par-3 11th, but Watson closed out the match on the following hole. The margin of victory was the largest in the event since Tiger Woods beat Stewart Cink 8 and 7 in 2018, when it was a 36-hole final.

“It’s just one of those deals, every time I looked up, (the ball) was nowhere near where I was looking,” Kisner said. “You gotta just keep grinding. A lot to build on this week, looking forward to a couple of weeks at August (for the Masters).

“I need to figure out what happened this afternoon and work on that. Get back to what I was doing earlier in the week, and continue working hard on it.”

Watson delayed a planned vacation after reaching Sunday’s semifinals, and he will continue to climb up the U.S. Ryder Cup team points after contemplating retirement while battling an undisclosed illness last year.

“Physical strength, healthy, it’s going to create the mind to be healthy,” he said. “I’m going to have confidence in yourself, knowing I can hit certain shots, and do certain shots again. Getting the strength back to hit the hard bomb or the big slice off the tee – things like that. And then, making the putts.”

Noren defeated Thomas 5 and 3 in the consolation match to take third place. Thomas lost consecutive matches Sunday after entering the day undefeated for the week and seeking to take over the No. 1 spot in the world rankings with a victory. Instead, he had to settle for fourth place and extending his lead in the FedExCup race.

“Definitely pretty tired,” Thomas said moments after his loss to Noren. “We were saying, it’s just so hard to keep it going this afternoon when you know you don’t have a chance to win. So much adrenaline goes by this morning. I can’t imagine how Alex felt. My (semifinal match) wasn’t near as pressure-packed as his was, so I’m sure he was running on gas, too. I definitely wasn’t very hard to beat this afternoon.

Thomas admitted that the thought of taking over the No. 1 ranking weighed heavily on his mind.

“Too much, honestly,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night. It would have been a good night to put my phone away and not read anything, just ‘cause I couldn’t pull anything up without it being right there. It’s just a learning experience, I need to handle it better. In the end, it might be a good thing going into August without that.”

Noren, who is playing full-time on the PGA Tour for the first time this year, fell short of his first victory on American soil, but the nine-time winner on the European Tour continues to build confidence.

“I think both of us, we were a little bit angry that we didn’t win this morning,” Noren said. “It’s great we play for a lot of points this afternoon, too, but … especially when I lost in a playoff, it’s like the energy kind of gets out of you. But I’m happy with the way that I played in the afternoon, too. I’m looking forward to the Masters now.