Nick Watney finds his game at the Wells Fargo Championship

If Nick Watney was given the opportunity to press a reset button and start his 2012 season over from the start, there’s a good chance he’d do it in a heartbeat.

After putting together the best season of his career in 2011 — winning twice and pocketing more than $ 5 million in earnings — the stage appeared to be set for one of golf’s rising stars.

We talk all the time about names to keep an eye on at majors, well, Watney was certainly one of the names people had pegged for big things this year.

But through the early portion of the season, he failed to live up to the sky-high expectations. With the exception of a T12 at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and T17 at the WGC Cadillac Championship, the rest of the year has been a complete wash.

With only one sub-70 round in his last 14 rounds, there’s was nothing that led you to believe Watney was going to be a factor coming into the Wells Fargo Championship. However, after posting an 8-under 64 on Friday, to take a one-shot lead into the weekend, maybe it’s time we took notice of Mr. Watney once again.

Whatever was ailing him early in the season certainly didn’t make the trip to Charlotte. That’s evident by the way he’s been playing this week Ranked 119th on tour in total putting coming into the event, Watney found his missing putting stroke over the last two days, averaging 1.645 putts per GIR (13th-best in the field). That number looks even more promising when you notice he’s hit 86 percent of his greens in regulation.

Things seem to be going just swimmingly for Watney at the moment, so much so that you almost wonder if the early season demons are a thing of the past. With the U.S. Open a little more than a month away, the California native has a chance to go to Olympic Club, in San Francisco, with some much-needed momentum.

Winning at Quail Hollow would be a perfect step in the right direction. Nick Watney may have been interested in hitting the reset button prior to this week, but after the first two rounds in Charlotte, he’d be better off letting things ride.

Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo! Sports