Hadwin has work to do after ‘boring’ round

CANADIAN 2 UNDER TO KICK OF NATIONAL OPEN

To watch Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson swing golf clubs is to sometimes forget they are actual humans.

Johnson turns his long frame into a tight coil, then drops low and unwinds and the golf ball explodes into the distance. His movement is so simple that the resulting power seems impossible. Watson does almost the exact opposite: a left-handed lash that can look like it has more moving parts than a Beijing intersection. Then the ball soars off the face of his pink driver, headed straight for the hospitality tents, before it swoops back to the right. Someone in the gallery will reliably mutter an expletive at the sight of it.

So if you are Adam Hadwin, playing alongside both of them at the RBC Canadian Open, does it make things a little stressful? A few nerves out there perhaps?

“No, because nobody was paying attention to me,” Hadwin said with a smile. “No, we had a good time. it was fun.”

Hadwin, 30, of Abbotsford, B.C., shot a 2-under 70 in his opening round, tied with Watson. Johnson had an adventurous 68 in a round he called “frustrating.”

We should all shoot a “frustrating” 4 under.

Asked if he has to make an extra effort to not pay attention to what his playing partners are doing in that kind of a group — Adam and the Goliaths — Hadwin has a quick answer.

“I mean, I drove it by Dustin by like 15 yards on No. 8 today. I didn’t want to mention that,” he said, smiling again.

Same club?

“Same club, yeah.”

Then he gets to the point: “They have their games, I have my game. I’ve played with both of them before, I know how far they hit it.”

It’s not, of course, quite that simple.

“Obviously, I stand back and watch in awe, just like everybody else and, you know, I knew I’d be hitting first into every green today,” Hadwin said. (Except on No. 8.) “It is what it is, I can’t make as many mistakes, I have to make a couple of putts.”

Then he sums up the attitude that he has to have playing with the bombers, especially on a course like Glen Abbey that, with three reachable par 5s on the back nine, absolutely favours someone who can pound it out there.

“There’s no pictures on the scorecard,” Hadwin said. Also, drive for show, putt for dough and various other golf clichés that grandpa taught you.

On Thursday, that steady-as-she-goes approach worked for Hadwin, who came into the week a comfortable 61st place on the Fedex Cup points list and is one of Canada’s best chances to finally chase down the ghost of Pat Fletcher.

“Just kind of a boring round,” Hadwin said. “Didn’t take advantage of some good shots early. Didn’t take advantage of some good shots late. Some nice saves in between. Not unhappy, not happy, just kind of an average round of golf.”

It can only be so average when playing with Watson and Johnson. On the par-5 16th, with Hadwin safely in the fairway, the big hitters had both sailed into the trees on the left. Watson gouged a wedge onto the green for a twoputt birdie and Johnson, from an awkward downhill lie, put his second shot in a greenside bunker. Then he promptly holed out for an eagle. Ho-hum. A few holes later, Watson had gone deep into the trees (again) on the fifth hole and needed to pitch back onto the fairway. The pitch hit a tree squarely and bounced right back at him. He ducked his head out of the way to avoid it, walked back 30 yards for his third shot and eventually made bogey. There are not a whole lot of routine pars when playing with these guys.

If Hadwin or any of the 20 other Canadians in the field are going to top the leaderboard at their national open like Fletcher did in 1954, it will take more than a string of 70s at the Abbey. The course, hosting the tournament for the fourth straight year, is about as scoring friendly as can be at the moment with greens softened by wet conditions and winds relatively low.

Hadwin is certainly possessed of the game to compete here. he won in Tampa, Fla., last season, a few weeks after posting round of 59 in a tour event and he has been low Canadian at the open a few times, including a breakout performance at Vancouver’s Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club in 2011, when he was still years from earning PGA Tour status. This year it is all much more familiar to him.

“It still is a stressful week. No doubt, it’s right up there with the majors for Canadians,” he said. “But I certainly have grown more comfortable being in the position that I’m in. I sort of relish the opportunity to be that guy and hopefully be the one that breaks through one of these years.”

But for Friday, it is back to hammering it out there with the Goliaths.

MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS / GETTY IMAGES Adam Hadwin plays a shot from a bunker on the 18th hole during the first round at the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey Golf Club Thursday. He called his 2-under performance “just kind of an average round of golf.”