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RBC CANADIAN OPENJuly 22, 2014Adam HadwinILE BIZARD, QUEBEC THE MODERATOR: Welcome Adam Hadwin to the media center. Adam, you come to the RBC Canadian Open for the first time as a winner on the Web.com TOUR, which I'm sure is a great feeling, but it's also a great feeling to be playing for your national open again, especially after the success you've had here in the past. Talk about what it's like to be here this week. ADAM HADWIN: It's always great coming back to Canadian Open. It's one event that I look forward to every year, and I'm very thankful that RBC and Golf Canada have continued to give me spots each year because certainly I'm not a member of the PGA TOUR yet, and they can very easily not bring me here and I could be back on the Web.com, so it's nice to be here playing with the big guys again. It's my first time to Montreal. Very excited to be here. First time seeing Royal Montreal this week, and it's going to be a great golf course this week, and hoping to see some of the sights downtown and around the city this week, as well. Q. Can you give me a sense of when you were at Shaughnessy and you had the shot lead and you were going into the last day just a couple shots back, do you feel the weight of the fact that it had been 50 some add years at that point since‑‑ it couldn't have been your focus, but did you recognize that that was sort of looming over the procedure? ADAM HADWIN: I think a little bit, yeah. It's hard not to recognize it at least. You know, I think every broadcast, every media person, that's the first thing they write about is we haven't won it in, what is it, 56 years? 60 years now. Obviously it's very difficult not to recognize it. I mean, it's right in front of your face every day. But like you said, it's not my main focus. My main focus is just hitting good shots and getting around the golf course. If that happens to come to fruition, then so be it. Q. I remember asking Mike Weir about the same question, and Mike saying, you know, the expectation that somebody can elevate their game for one week and happen to be in their home country on a golf course they may or may not be best suited for is asking for a lot, and there's only truly been a handful of players in the history of the game that could elevate themselves, their games, for specific weeks. ADAM HADWIN: Yeah, you know, most of us aren't building a schedule around majors like the top players, like Tiger, Adam Scott, and we're not trying to peak for one event. We're trying to peak for every event, to be consistent throughout the year and play well, especially with my game, I haven't played a full year on the PGA TOUR, and this is sort of a one‑off week for me to come up here and enjoy the experience. Yeah, I'd love to play well. I'd love for my game to be in excellent shape coming in, but outside of 2011, it really hasn't been that good coming into the Canadian Open, and I've struggled a little bit the last few years. You know, it is very difficult. It's a much bigger week, obviously being Canadian and this year playing well coming into it, a little bit more exposure. Going into 2011 nobody knew who I was. I did no media sessions beforehand. I'm a little surprised you guys asked me here today. But you can feel a little bit more of a pressure being put on you. They want you to win. They want you to succeed. They want you to do well. But it's just going out on the golf course and finding a rhythm and having a chance coming down that back nine on Sunday. Q. This epiphany you had earlier this year for being more businesslike when you got to the golf course, before you start a tournament, before you start a week, I've known you for a while and I've known the work that you've put in. We've talked about it a little bit. Can you just talk about that a little bit and what went through your mind again just in terms of preparing yourself on a week‑to‑week basis and being ready for this, being ready for what you face on a week‑to‑week basis on Web.com? ADAM HADWIN: Yeah, the biggest thing was just working a little bit smarter. I think that was probably the biggest thing. I was putting the work in. I was putting the hours in, but I don't know if I was getting enough out of my practice. I wasn't focused on the right things. You know, as well mentally I think I was putting too much pressure on myself to play too well all of the time, to be too perfect, and this off‑season was really spent working on the short game, working on the putter, just trying to take some pressure off the ball‑striking, knowing that if I do miss greens I can get up‑and‑down. It's not the end of the world. And that's been such a huge help for me because I don't have to hit it perfect now to score, which is amazing. I can stand up and I know if I hit a couple bad shots I can get up‑and‑down and I can save myself in the middle of rounds when I need to make a seven‑, eight‑footer for par or something like that to keep momentum going, I can do that, and I've got confidence in myself to do that now, and prior to that I don't think I did. Q. You and I traded a couple tweets or direct messages back and forth, so I think the putting and the short game‑‑ not saying you didn't work at it before, I know you did, but now I think if I percentage‑wised it, it sounds to me like you're actually putting in more time on short game and everything from 100 yards in than maybe you are on full swing, fair? ADAM HADWIN: Oh, absolutely. Right now it's like 95/5. I hardly ever‑‑ the work that I do swing‑wise is almost done at home in a mirror, just some swings to make sure everything is on plane. I've hit it really well all year. The weeks that I play well I usually putt better. That's pretty much it. Most of my work is on the putting green, on the chipping green, and I think the biggest thing is if I have got the confidence no matter where I hit it up and around the greens, if I can get myself up‑and‑down, if I am putting well and my speed is good, then it just doesn't matter really how I hit it. I'm always going to hit it pretty good. I've always been able to do that. But I just haven't made enough putts in my career yet, and that's why I'm where I'm at, and that's why this year I've been better. I've made putts. That's the biggest difference for me. Q. I hate asking questions about things that are two years away or whatever, but this morning there was a meeting between the Canadian Olympic committee, Golf Canada and the players. At this particular point, and I mean, this goes back to you and I talked about this like three years ago when I first wrote a piece on you, as the weeks and months go by, does the Olympics become more of something that you put on to the radar saying, geez, I really want to do that? ADAM HADWIN: Of course it's something I really want to do. To represent your country at the highest level, that's what every athlete, amateur athlete dreams of, and now we have an opportunity to do that in golf. It's something that I'm going to try and focus to get it off my radar. I just had a chat at lunch actually about that. I wanted to play early this morning so I wasn't able to go to the meeting, and we were talking about the qualification process and everything, and I was still a little unsure of how it would happen. I said, look, if I go out and play golf they're going to tell me that I'm on it. You guys are going to do your job in the next year and a half and say he's moved up, he's on the team, he's off the team, he is close, so I'm going to know through the media whether I'm close or not close. I'm more worried about just getting that little while ball in the hole as quickly as possible. If I can do that as best I can, then I know that I'm going to have a chance. Q. Talking to guys when you're playing rounds and stuff like that, is that something that people are starting to talk about, golfers are starting to talk about, that golf is back for the first time in like 100 years or whatever it is? ADAM HADWIN: A little bit, yeah. It's certainly come up in a few more conversations than it has before. I still don't think it's‑‑ we play so many weeks, and it's a little bit different, I think, for us because we're training and playing for week after week after week. We have four majors a year, whereas most of these athletes going into the Olympics they set their goal four years in advance and they're training for four years for that one moment, whereas most players would be looking forward to Firestone right now or the PGA or the British last week where that's where their focus is. I think as it continues to get closer to that moment, then players may start adding, being a little bit more prepared for that, but it's just so much different than an amateur athlete sport like sprinting or swimming or something like that where they have the world championships in between and stuff, but they're training for six months and then one event, then training for three months and then another event, whereas we're week after week. Q. How cool do you think it will be, though, to be part of an Olympic team? In other words, we know what you have on a week‑to‑week basis at your disposal as a professional golfer on the Web.com TOUR, eventually PGA TOUR next year: Courtesy cars, everything taken care of for you, all that other stuff, right? In this case you're going to be a member of a team. You're going to ride buses in Rio, you're going to be with all the other athletes. Do you find that's going to be pretty compelling, kind of cool? ADAM HADWIN: Oh, I'm sure it's an experience that nobody could ever describe, that nobody would ever be able to describe to anybody else that hasn't experienced it. It's just one of those‑‑ you know, I would probably cry at opening ceremonies, hearing the National Anthem or something like that and being with that group of athletes that has worked so hard and that they're at the top of their level of what they do, and this is the peak of sports really. I mean, worldwide everybody is watching, and to be able to compete on that level with every other athlete from Canada in sort of one big group, and you all do different sports, individual or team sports, but you're all one nation for that week and you're all together and cheering each other on. It would be an experience of a lifetime. Q. One of the interesting trivia questions of Olympic golf is do you know who won the first and the last Olympic gold medal? ADAM HADWIN: George S. Lyon. Q. Is that something that guys know or did you just know that yourself? ADAM HADWIN: Well, being Canadian I know that. We've talked about it a little bit. I think it was Hamilton we saw the Olympic trophy from way back when, but I think most golfers, though, they probably wouldn't know that. I think it was, what, 1904? Q. Can you just give me a quick rundown, did you go to the new driver, have you tested it? Are you going to put it in the bag, and any other changes you might have made in the last month that I don't know about? ADAM HADWIN: No, I still have the old Optiforce 440 in the bag. I've got an X‑2 Hot head that I travel with that's really good, as well. I personally just didn't get much difference out of the‑‑ from the Optiforce to the X‑2 on the numbers. I didn't see much. The Optiforce just fits my eye, fits my swing so well. The numbers are so good that it was tough to go up from that. I've got one as a backup just in case the‑‑ this X‑2 is no slump, either. It's a great driver and it goes. It's just I've played so well with the Optiforce, I just have‑‑ I just don't really want to switch yet. Other than that, I don't think I've changed anything. I've got two of the new Tour Grind wedges in, the new Tour Grind, Mack Daddy 2 Tour Grind, the T Grind, in a 60 and a 52, but other than that, everything is pretty much the same. Q. The ball is still the same, the SR‑3? ADAM HADWIN: SR‑3, yeah. Q. You're staying in a family here in Montreal. Is that something you do often or something you like? ADAM HADWIN: I do it a little bit. I did it quite a bit last year on the Web.com. This year I sort of got in my own rhythm in hotels and figuring out my way around, so I've stayed in more hotels this year. But I've heard the traffic here in Montreal can be quite suspect at times, and so I wanted to see if I could stay closer to the course. I've got an acquaintance, Alan Palmer at Shaughnessy, and his dad is actually the GM here at Royal Montreal, and it's friends of theirs. They stay just across the island on the other side, so it's like 10 minutes away, and great family, great hosts, and a friend of mine, Kevin Stinson, Monday qualified in and he's actually now caddying for Kevin, and Kevin is staying next door, as well, so everybody is all together. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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