Throughout the season, Canadian golf stars Adam Hadwin, and David Hearn will check in to provide readers with candid insights as they compete on the PGA Tour.
Getting to the Tour Championship means you’ve had a special year. Given there are only 30 players at the tournament this week, it really demonstrates you’ve had a solid season.
That said, the second half of the year hasn’t been as strong as I hoped, but it wasn’t as far off as it might appear. The success early in the year made me think I should play well every week. I started to expect it of myself and I probably tried a little too hard. It might sound silly to some, but I think I tried to force things a little bit.
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At the RBC Canadian Open in July, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel and played well the next week at the Bridgestone. I was mentally out of it at the PGA Championship — I struggled with the Bermuda grass that week.
Heading into the FedEx Cup, I started to see my game come around to the way it was at the beginning of the year. Now I’m grinding through rounds and staying patient and waiting for things to happen. I want to ride my momentum a little bit; I want to keep giving myself a chance to find an opportunity to get hot.
On the PGA Tour, you have to find a way to battle through tough rounds and focus on the shots at hand. I’m figuring out slowly that if I keep to my process, remain patient, and keep giving myself some chances, at some point, the balls will start to fall into the cup.
The FedExCup has been a mix of successes and struggles. Every week I’m competing against the best in the world. After missing the cut in the first tournament, I went to Boston and played really well through three rounds. I was really disappointed at the end of that tournament when my putter let me down. That said, it wasn’t all negative. I managed to lock up both a spot in this week’s Tour Championship (I started this week in 21st spot), and landed a place on the Presidents Cup team, becoming the first Canadian to represent the country since Graham DeLaet did it in 2013.
It is impossible to underestimate how important getting to the Tour Championship is to a PGA Tour player. It means you get into three of golf’s majors, and all of the other key events of the 2017-18 season. It allows me to truly plan my schedule for the first time since I started playing professional golf, which is a great season. The last few years I haven’t always been in the tournaments I wanted to play in heading into the season. Now I can plan around the majors and build a schedule that is beneficial for my golf game on the course and my body off the course.
With that in the future, I need to focus on making the next two weeks as successful as I can. I need to put the pedal down and see if I can play the best golf of my career, and help lead the International Team at the Presidents Cup to victory.
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