Throughout the year, Shaw golf stars Graham DeLaet and Adam Hadwin will check in and present insights from the PGA Tour.
There’s no way around it—it has been a tough year and hasn’t gone the way I expected.
It started with a injury and though I’m healthy now, there have been little nagging things that continue to creep up on me. But truthfully, the biggest effect the initial injury had on me was it altered my schedule.
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Golf fans often don’t recognize the impact a schedule has on a golfer. I’m in my sixth year on the PGA Tour and I know the tournaments and courses I like, where I have the best chance to play well. Sometimes I’m not a fan of the course, but I play well there. People will often ask about a golf course and whether I like it. Sometimes you agree the course isn’t really that strong, but for some reason it suits my game and I play well there. It is relatively simple to set up a schedule based on that.
But this year didn’t work out that way. After I got hurt I wanted to play my way into the Masters and so I changed my schedule from the one I had planned. I added a tournament I normally wouldn’t have played and took one off that I would usually have been in. And frankly, it hasn’t worked out the way I’d hoped.
How do I set up my schedule? You try to play the tournaments where you’re most likely to have the best results, while not overscheduling yourself. I don’t like playing more than three tournaments in a row, and it is nice to get two weeks off between tournaments. One week off between events is fine, but you only get a couple of days away from the course and you’re back to practicing. That takes a toll on your body. Truthfully, I can’t hit balls on the range the way I used to be able to when I was younger. I need a break for my body in order to last playing three or four tournaments in a row.
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On the other hand, if I have two weeks off in a row I can put the clubs away for five days or even a week. That allows me to catch up on things that stack up when I’m away from home, and get some treatment on the nagging little issues that bother you over the course of a season. When you play 10 months a year—which is about the longest of any sport—it takes a toll. People will say it is just golf, but it is hard on your body and drains you mentally as well.
From here on in I’m sticking to my schedule and staying fresh. It is my sixth full year on tour and I should have known better than to tinker with what has worked.
Take, for example, the AT&T Byron Nelson. If you can carry the ball 280 yards in the air, you have a huge advantage at TPC Four Seasons where the tournament is played. It seems like it just sets up really well for me. It is also a windy venue and I’ve played in a lot of wind all my life, so I’m comfortable there. I get excited that week and I stay right on the site, so you don’t even have to get into your car if you don’t want to. That’s a good week for me.
There’s still time to turn the year around. I’m sticking to my schedule from this point on. Two of my goals are making it to Tour Championship and being on the Presidents Cup team. That’s my focus. I have to take it one week at a time and keep the right frame of mind, and if I do that, my game will get to where I expect it to be.
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