Bubba Watson's father dies after battling throat cancer

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Bubba Watson's father, Gerry Watson, has died after a lengthy battle with throat cancer.

Bubba Watson announced the news on his Twitter feed Thursday afternoon. "Everyone it's a sad day for my family!! My Dad has Passed," Watson wrote.

Bubba Watson

A few hours later, Watson wrote: "My dad got to see me win & play for USA in the Ryder Cup!!!!! Gods plan is always is right! God gave my family my best year & worst year!!"

Several PGA TOUR players, including Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy, Trevor Immelman, Troy Merritt, Webb Simpson, Jeff Klauk, Kris Blanks and Billy Horschel, offered condolences through their own Twitter feeds.

At the Ryder Cup in Wales, Watson said that doctors had told him his father had three months to live. "I'm playing this for him," he said two days before the start of the event.

Gerry Watson was a former Green Beret and Vietnam veteran. After Bubba Watson won the Travelers Championship this year -- his first win on the PGA TOUR -- he broke down and cried. Watson is a self-taught golfer but he explained how his father influenced him.

"My dad taught me everything I know," Watson said that Sunday in Hartford. "It's not very much, but that's all I know. He would agree with that.

"You know, I've never had a lesson. My dad, he took me to the golf course when I was six years old and just told me he was going to be in the woods looking for his ball, so he just told me to take this 9-iron and beat it down the fairway. And now look at me after beating a 9-iron on the fairway coming from Bagdad, Florida, I never dreamed this."

At the PGA Championship, which Watson nearly won -- eventually losing to Martin Kaymer in a a playoff -- he discussed the circumstances involving his father's health, as well as the health scare that Bubba's wife, Angie, went through.

"My dad has cancer. We have been battling that all year," Watson explained. "I didn't tell many people. Because it's really nobody's business, you know. I'm not here to get sympathy, I'm here to play golf.

"So we thought -- my wife on Christmas, day before Christmas, my wife went to the hospital and when I was in Pensacola seeing my dad for Christmas. She had a headache. And she's a professional athlete who had surgery on knees, shoulder, everywhere possible. So when she wants to go to the hospital I know something's wrong. And come to find out she was really dehydrated, we took a redeye flight to come see my dad and she just needed to get hydrated. But the doctor there said that she had a tumor right here in her pituitary gland.

"So my dad said 'Look, I lived my life, you go home, you go get your wife and straighten her out, see what we got to do.' ... So we had a second opinion, one of the best neurosurgeons and he said it's not a tumor."