HADWIN’S NOT JUST A NUMBER
Shooting 59 is a real feat, but B.C. golfer has many more big days ahead of him
To this day, Al Geiberger is still known as Mr. 59 because in the second round of the 1977 Memphis Classic he became the first player to break 60 on the PGA Tour.
Geiberger actually did much more than that in golf. He won 11 times on the tour, including the 1966 PGA Championship. He won the Tournament Players Championship in 1975 and twice represented the United States in the Ryder Cup. His son Brent also won on the PGA Tour, and Al extended his career with a long, successful run on the Champions Tour.
But mention Al Geiberger? Mr. 59.
Adam Hadwin doesn’t want to be Canada’s Mr. 59.
Don’t misunderstand — Hadwin was thrilled to shoot 13 under par Saturday in the third round of the CareerBuilder Challenge in La Quinta, Calif. The 29-year-old from Abbotsford, B.C., is honoured to be the first Canadian, and only ninth man, to break 60 since the PGA Tour began in 1929.
But Hadwin has so many more things he wants to do in golf — things that represent broader achievement than one blazingly hot day on the course.
“Obviously, we strive to shoot as low as we can and we’d all love to shoot 59 and have that moment,” Hadwin said on the phone Monday morning before driving to San Diego for this week’s event at Torrey Pines in San Diego. “But if you ask me would you like five PGA Tour wins or to shoot 59 once, I’d say the five wins all the time.
“After the round Saturday, I really wanted to go out and close out the tournament … so I’d win a tournament while shooting 59. I fell a shot short, but I’m not disappointed at all. I played some really good golf at the end. But I want to make it a real point now to go out and not be remembered as the guy who shot 59, but the guy who played Presidents Cups and competed in majors, and won majors and won multiple times on the PGA Tour. I want that beside my name.
“I just don’t want to be known as the one-and-done, known for that one thing.”
Hadwin started Sunday’s final round with a one-stroke lead but finished second, a shot behind playing partner Hudson Swafford of Lakeland, Fla. But it could hardly be said Hadwin collapsed under pressure.
Hadwin birdied the 16th and 17th holes at the PGA West Stadium Course to push Swafford and, after driving into the rough on 18, made a clutch 11-foot par putt to finish alone in second place. Hadwin collected a cheque for US$626,400, his biggest payday since he burst to prominence in the 2011 RBC Canadian Open at Shaughnessy, in Vancouver, where he tied for fourth four years before he became a PGA Tour regular.
Adam Hadwin isn’t going to be one-and-done. His progress in golf has been steady if unspectacular. After learning to win on the Vancouver Golf Tour and the mini-tour Fraser Mulholland runs for local club and tour pros, Hadwin played his way through the Canadian and Web.com tours before earning full-time status on the PGA Tour for the 2015 season.
He survived his rookie year and kept his card by finishing 107th in the points standings, then moved to 85th last year. He is 10th early this season — the quirky 2017 PGA Tour schedule began last fall — and his second place in La Quinta was Hadwin’s fifth straight top-30 finish.
He is ranked 25th in total putting and 53rd in total driving and is 12th on the money list with US$922,500 in official earnings.
Nobody shoots 59 without luck, but this tournament was not a fluke for Hadwin.
“I wasn’t nervous going out (with the lead) Sunday morning,” he said. “You always get first-tee jitters and stuff like that. But I was very comfortable.
“I’d put myself in positions to have a chance to win golf tournaments and just sputtered out. I wasn’t able to hit the shot when I needed to or make the putt when I needed to. I think the biggest thing this says to me is I can get it done. I can come up with the big shot or the big putt when I need to. I felt like I knew this was there deep down, but I hadn’t quite proven it yet.
“To still have a chance to win coming up 18 was big for me. Now I know I can kind of do it. And how I felt on the golf course on Sunday … I was thinking clearly, thinking the right things. I was never worried what others were doing. This will help me immensely moving forward.”
Hadwin reiterated that the support he received from the many Canadians in the Palm Springs area made the weekend even more special for him.
“My phone just blew up Saturday night,” he said of his 59. “These next few days I’m going to try to get back to everyone. What happened on Saturday is still sinking in, and probably I won’t fully realize it until I have downtime to think about it, that I’m part of history, one of the few men to do this.”
And one determined not to be entirely defined by it.