From the pine straw. Into Masters history.

The second playoff hole of the 2012 Masters began with trouble. Bubba Watson’s drive on No. 10 went right, into the trees and onto pine straw. Louis Oosthuizen had already stunned Augusta National with an albatross earlier that day. Now the two men were playing for a Green Jacket, and Watson’s route to the green was blocked.

The obvious play was to find a way back toward the fairway and hope to save par. Watson, a left-hander famous for seeing curves where other players see straight lines, looked at the opening between the trees and pictured something else: a wedge that would start away from the green, turn sharply, and come back toward the flag.

How the playoff reached No. 10

Oosthuizen supplied one of the tournament’s defining moments before the playoff even started. On the par-5 second hole of the final round, he holed his second shot for an albatross, also called a double eagle. Yet that extraordinary swing did not settle the championship. Watson birdied four straight holes on the back nine, and the pair finished regulation tied at 10 under par.

They began sudden death at the 18th, where both made par. The playoff then moved to the downhill 10th, Camellia. Its fairway bends left and the approach asks players to control both shape and distance. Watson’s tee shot made that task harder: the trees stood between his ball and the intended line to the green.

The shot no one could draw on a yardage book

Watson had roughly 155 yards left. He chose a wedge and sent the ball through a narrow window, bending it dramatically from right to left around the trees. Accounts describe a curve of about 40 yards. The ball found the green, leaving him a chance to win with two putts. The precision was remarkable; so was the decision to attempt it under playoff pressure.

It was not a standard straight-line recovery. For a left-handed player, the shape was a hook, and Watson’s ability to create that much movement allowed him to use a line that barely existed for most golfers. The landing spot mattered as much as the bend: an ambitious curve that missed the green would have left the title exposed.

Two putts and a first Green Jacket

Oosthuizen could not match Watson’s par on the 10th. Watson two-putted, and the first major championship of his career was his. The final putt completed the win, but the wedge from the pine straw became the enduring image of it: risk, touch and an uncommon imagination compressed into a single swing.

Watson returned to win another Masters in 2014. His 2012 shot remains distinct because it did more than escape trouble. It transformed what looked like a losing position into a winning one on the second hole of a major championship playoff.

Was it the greatest shot in Masters history? That is a debate worth having. The case for it begins with what was at stake, the almost impossible angle, and the fact that Watson had to execute the shot he alone seemed to see.