Hadwin eager to end slump
Golfer targets Canadian Open for turnaround
Oh what a roll Adam Hadwin was on.
In January, he became the eighth player in history to break 60 on the PGA Tour when he shot 59 in the third round of the CareerBuilder Challenge, then finished runner-up the next day for his largest paycheck and highest finish of his career on the best circuit in the world.
Seven weeks later, the man from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in Canada went one better in each category, winning his first Tour title in the Valspar Championship, accepting a $1.134 million check and receiving invitations to the Masters in April and the Tournament of Champions next year.
Two weeks later, he married Jessica Dawn, whom he met while playing the Web.com Tour. Two days after the ceremony, the bride and groom closed on their first home in Arizona.
Hadwin’s roll, however, has slowed. Heading into Thursday’s start of one of the tournaments he circles on his calendar every year — the RBC Canadian Open — Hadwin, 29, has no idea where his game will take him.
Since winning Valspar and finishing sixth the following week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Hadwin’s best finish in 10 starts is a tie for 22nd in the RBC Heritage. He’s missed the cut in three of his last five starts, including his last two in the Quicken Loans Invitational and last week’s British Open.
Ranked No. 55 in the world, Hadwin, once on solid ground to make The Presidents Cup team for the Internationals, is 11th in the standings, one spot out of the top 10 that automatically qualify for the event.
“I have to hit the reset button,” Hadwin said after he shot 82 in horrid conditions at Royal Birkdale in the second round to miss the weekend of the British Open. “I wish I was going back home with some fonder memories of Britain. But I’m looking forward to playing in front of hometown fans on a course I’ve played well on before. Hopefully I can turn things around and bring a little better game.”
That could prove a tall order for Hadwin at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario, the first solo design by Jack Nicklaus. A Canadian has not won the national championship since Pat Fletcher was victorious in 1954. Hadwin and the other 12 Canadians in the field are hoping to halt the drought, with a group includ- ing Mackenzie Hughes, David Hearn, Nick Taylor, Jared du Toit and Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters champion who lost in a playoff in the event in 2004 and is back for his 26th start.
“We keep getting reminded every year by the Canadian media that it’s been since 1954 that a Canadian has won,” said Hadwin, who has two top-10s in seven starts in the tournament. “To be the Canadian and break through and win on home soil would be a dream come true.”
But Hadwin is just hoping to break out of his slump. His troubles deal more with the mental state of his game than the physical side of it. Since winning the Valspar, there has been more pressure to meet expectations, including his own, and more demands on his time. Both of those have been ramped up this week because of the enormity of Canada’s major championship.
“Honestly, I’ve done a terrible job of handling the pressure so far this year. I really haven’t played that well since Bay Hill. I have to figure out a way of handling it a little bit better and find a way to get back to the way I was playing the first couple months of the season,” he said. “The hardest part is that every week I’ve felt that I prepared well, every part of my game is good enough to play, and then things go sideways and I can’t bring it back like I used to. I’m just not in the right frame of mind to play well just yet, and when there is a little bit of adversity I haven’t been able to kind of dig down like I did the first two months. That’s the challenge.
“Fortunately, I know what I have to do. Now I just have to do it.”