Adam HadwinPhoto illustration The Globe and Mail. Source photo Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Adam Hadwin is on the phone from his house in Wichita, Kan., but he’s beginning to think he’s not alone. “I have a sneaking suspicion my wife is filming me in the back somewhere,” he says. “Like, getting these answers, to make fun of me later.”
Someone’s always taking him down. If it’s not his wife, Jessica, who lovingly uses him for Twitter fodder, it’s security on the 18th hole of the RBC Canadian Open, where Hadwin last year briefly turned from one of this country’s best golfers into one of the world’s most famous tackling dummies, when he tried to shower his good friend Nick Taylor with celebratory Champagne and instead ended up going viral for all the wrong reasons.
Happily, Hadwin, 36, suffered no long-term effects, and he’ll be teeing off next Thursday at this year’s edition of the tournament at Hamilton Golf and Country Club. “I hope to get there and meet up with the security guard and get a photo to start the week,” he said. No doubt his wife will send it out into the world.
We spoke on Tuesday morning.
I suppose I should begin by offering my condolences on the Canucks.
Yeah, I’m a huge fan of the Vancouver Canucks and I want them to do their best, but as a fellow athlete, I understand that not everything goes your way, and sometimes you can compete as hard as you want and not get the results you want. But as a Vancouver Canucks fan, I hate it that I cannot watch more hockey this year.
When were you happiest?
My wife would probably kill me if I didn’t say some time right now. But I feel like, gun-to-head? I’d probably say maybe early, mid-teen years, back in Abbotsford, when I can remember going up to the golf course after dinner, when it was still light out, ‘til, like, 10 o’clock, and there’d be nobody on the golf course. Just kind of an early summer evening and I could play Ledgeview however and whenever I wanted, and I was out there by myself. That was when I was still just trying to get better at the game. It wasn’t how I earned my living, it never felt like a job. It was something I wanted to do. Just very peaceful, just out there by myself, trying to get better, just hitting shots and working at it.
What do you consider the lowest depth of misery?
I find it hard to separate personal and professional sometimes. I feel like you have these two different lives – personally, there are things that you’re going through, but professionally things might still be okay. And then professionally, things aren’t going well, but personally things are great. So, personally, going through infertility with my wife and seeing her struggle, and the strain I think that infertility brought on us as a couple and everything – that was probably the hardest time that I’ve dealt with, personally, but professionally I was still playing pretty well. And professionally, there was a time, probably going into ‘21, where I had sort of hit my peak, coming off of 2017, 2018, where I had won, and I sort of was on this slow climb down. I went without an instructor for a few months, and then during 2021, I sort of revamped my swing, and although I was getting better, I was basically fighting for my [PGA] card the entire year, trying to maintain my status on Tour.
What characteristic defines you?
Tenacity, the sort of ‘never give up.’ When the chips are down is usually when I’m at my best. I haven’t met many people that share my level of competitiveness. And that’s a life thing. That’s everything that I do. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a fun game of pickleball or trying to win a major. I will definitely be giving everything that I have.
Is there a characteristic of yours that you don’t like?
Probably a couple, yeah. I have an extreme ability to put things off, and to push things out until a decision has to be made. And it leads to a lot of indecisiveness. It might stem from a little form of laziness, as well. Those are probably the two that I would say would bother me the most.
Who is a fictional character you admire?
I was a huge fan of the Bourne movies, Jason Bourne. That whole spy type, I think it would be kinda cool to do. Bourne always came out on top. Just, you know, always knowing what to do.
I’m sorry to say this, but do you think you would make much of a spy if you can’t even invade a golf course with a bottle of Champagne?
Correct. No, I would make a terrible one, which is probably why his character seems kind of cool – because I can’t do it.
During the PGA Championship last weekend, a fan stripped down to his underwear and jumped into a water hazard to retrieve a club you’d lost. At some point, do you start to think, ‘Maybe it’s me that inspires people to act strangely?’
It definitely has to be something to do with me, for sure. But I think that it probably is not inspiring others to act in some sort of manner, it’s probably me doing dumb stuff. I think that’s probably the common denominator. You know, if I wear my credential going out onto the green, I probably don’t get tackled. If I don’t let the club slip and end up in the water, then that moment doesn’t go viral.
Are there any podcasts you’re listening to these days?
I just can’t get into them. I can’t sit there for an hour and listen to people talk.
On a video that you and your wife made for the PGA Tour, she said that you sleep like a corpse, with your hands folded on your chest. Is that to conserve energy?
No. I mean, I didn’t think we were going to analyze the way that people slept in this world.
Sorry, I’m not trying to embarrass you.
No, I don’t even care. Listen, my wife has put more stuff out on Twitter about me and the things that I have done, that there’s nothing embarrassing. Like, there’s no such thing any more for me.
Do you have a greatest extravagance?
The only thing that comes to mind that I actually spend a lot more money on than I should is that I fly privately in between events – and that’s not every week. But I’ll spend the money to get some private jet hours, to make life a little bit easier at times during the year for us. Everything else is pretty bland, pretty boring.
What compels a person to dedicate their life to a sport where they almost never win?
Haha! Lunacy. (Pause) The reason I got into golf was that it’s all on me. Good or bad, it’s all on me. If I don’t perform well, I don’t have anybody else to blame. If I perform well, I know that I’ve done the work. I didn’t play team sports any later than sort of my early teens. I played some of that stuff in high school, and I found it very difficult to cope with – even at that age – individually doing well and the team doing poorly, and also the vice versa, of doing poorly individually but the team doing well, as if I didn’t do my part. So, I think with golf, for me, it’s this personal responsibility. My success is all dependent on me. Now, obviously, I have surrounded myself with an amazing team that will get me there. But at the end of the day, nobody hit the shot for me. Nobody’s in my head as I’m standing over the golf ball. And you know, even Tiger said it when he was at his peak, he was like, ‘I’m 30th in putting.’ There’s just so many facets to get better at, and there’s this endless chase of perfection that I think that we’re all trying to attain. And maybe because it never happens, that’s kind of what pushes us even more. That: ‘Well, I finished fifth. Yeah, it’s a great week, but I didn’t win. So, I have to get better.’ Versus, ‘Well, yeah, we won this game, so we’re good.’