AUGUSTA, Ga. — Bubba Watson is old enough to be Jordan Spieth’s uncle, but that is not why their final-round duel at the Masters remained compelling long after the outcome no longer was in doubt.

Spieth, 20, has never seen a shot he didn’t expect to pull off. Watson, 35, has never seen a shot he didn’t want to try. Spieth is a perfectionist; Watson, an impressionist. Together with the ageless set, led by Miguel Ángel Jiménez, the 50-year-old human bungee cord, the 78th Masters dispelled a few misconceptions about professional golf and the tortured souls who play it.

Can we banish, once and for all, the notion that the players are corporate clones? There is nothing in nature, short of a freak weather system, capable of dismantling Augusta National quite the way Watson did in his final-round 69, which left him at 8-under for the tournament, 3 strokes better than Spieth and Jonas Blixt.

Let the club members try to Bubba-proof the course. If they plant more loblolly pines, he’ll simply fade the ball around them or off them, as he did with his 366-yard drive on the 13th. Or he’ll shoot his ball through a cruise-ship portal of space between branches, like he did on his second shot Sunday at the par-5 15th.

The safe play for someone protecting a 3-stroke lead, as Watson was, was to lay up at No. 15. Watson’s caddie, Ted Scott, knew better than to suggest it. He watched Watson take his 6-iron and hit a punch shot through a narrow opening. The ball carried almost 200 yards and bounced off the back of the green, setting up a par that was anything but routine.

“That’s Bubba golf,” Scott said, adding, “I was like, ‘That’s not a very big gap.’ But for him, he sees huge gaps.”

Unlike Spieth, impatient at times Sunday when his ball didn’t end up exactly where he had envisioned, or the touring pros who pick at their swings on the range until there is nothing left of their confidence, Watson does not try to be perfect. He settles for being perfectly creative.

If Watson commandeered the main event, Jiménez was a worthy warm-up act. Jiménez, the low senior at 4-under, had the full attention of the fans, and that was before his opening shot. Those watching him on the practice range might have missed the ponytail sticking out of the back of his cap or the cigar in his mouth, entranced instead by the contortion act that he calls stretching.

His routine makes people point and sometimes snicker, but Jiménez doesn’t care. He is enjoying the last laugh.

“It’s my 26th year on tour, and probably some people say, ‘That’s so many years, that’s got to be hard and that’s got to be hard on the body,’” Jiménez said. “No, I love what I’m doing, and I hope I’m still in the same condition for another 25.”

He laughed, adding, “I’m not going to get bored of myself.”