Bubba Watson

Gerry Lester "Bubba" Watson, Jr. (born November 5, 1978) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. One of the few left-handed golfers on tour, he is a multiple major champion, having won the Masters Tournament in 2012 and 2014. In February 2015, Watson reached a career-high 2nd place in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Watson is among the longest drivers on the PGA Tour; in 2007 he had an average drive of 315.2 yards (288.2 m) and can hit a ball over 350 yards (320 m), capable of generating a ball speed up to 194 mph (312 km/h).

Amateur career

Watson was born and raised in Bagdad, Florida, near Pensacola. He played on the golf team at Milton High School, which had featured future PGA Tour members Heath Slocum and Boo Weekley just before he attended. Watson played golf for Faulkner State Community College in nearby Baldwin County, Alabama, where he was a junior college All-American. He transferred to the University of Georgia, the defending NCAA champions, and played for the Bulldogs in 2000 and 2001. As a junior, Watson helped lead the Bulldogs to the SEC title in 2000.

Bubba

In American usage, bubba is a relationship nickname formed from brother and given to boys, especially eldest male siblings, to indicate their role in a family. For some boys and men, bubba is used so pervasively that it replaces the given name...The nickname may also be used outside the family by friends as a term of endearment.

The linguist Ian Hancock has described similarities between the African language Krio and Gullah, the creole language of African-Americans in the isolated Sea Islands of South Carolina and points out that the Krio expression bohboh (boy) appears in Gullah as buhbuh, which may account for the "bubba" of the American South. (http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/06.htm)

Robert Ferguson notes in his “English Surnames”’; Bubba corresponds with the German bube, a boy. This matches Saxon and Hibernian tradition.

Because of its association with the southern part of the United States, bubba is also often used outside the South as a pejorative to mean a person of low economic status and limited education. Bubba may also be taken to mean one who is a "good ol' boy." In the US Army and Marines, bubba can mean a lay soldier, similar to grunt but with connotations of endearment instead of derision (e.g., "Can you make that device easier to work with, 'cus every bubba is gonna have to use it.").

Bubba (fish)

Bubba (c. 1982 – August 22, 2006) was a Queensland grouper who resided at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois. Bubba is believed to be the first fish to undergo chemotherapy. He was often nicknamed "The Super Grouper."

History

The 69.3 kilogram Bubba was donated to the aquarium in 1987 by an anonymous donor; at the time he was a female about ten inches long. Bubba switched gender to male (being a protogynous hermaphrodite) in the mid-1990s and eventually grew to 154 pounds while living in the aquarium's "Wild Reef" shark exhibit. In 2001, Bubba developed an unusual growth on his forehead, which was eventually diagnosed to be malignant; the aquarium called in veterinarians to remove the growth surgically and treat Bubba with chemotherapy that year, and again in 2003 when it regrew.

Shedd officials stated that Bubba was popular with cancer survivors, especially children, and was a favorite of visitors. The oncology department of Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, recognized Bubba with a tile in the ward.