The Official Site of Hunter Mahan

Wed, Mar 3rd 2010, 16:03

Caddies Corner: A win at the WMG Open

Wow…what a week, what a start to the year. After what was a very lackluster first four weeks of the 2010 Season, lightning strikes and we are in position to have the best year of Hunter’s career. A fun place to work from!

Hunter came into the week with what has unfortunately become our normal west coast swing…One missed cut in LA, a couple of very average weeks in San Diego and Pebble Beach, and a loss in the first round of the Match Play Championship in Tucson. No one was really all that worried, because Hunter has always been a summer player…as the weather heats up, so has he. But that doesn’t mean anyone was thrilled with where we were going into Phoenix. Hunter, Sean Foley, his swing coach, Neale Smith, his sports psychologist, and I have had numerous
discussions early in the week about the state of Hunter’s game. We all believed his game was stronger top to bottom than it has ever been, so it was just extremely frustrating not getting the results to back up where we all knew his game actually was. So our game plan going into the week was to simply try and get H to “play
golf.”

The first round was OK. A decent score of -3, but still probably 2-4 shots higher than we should have shot. A small mistake here and there, and a 65 turns into a 68. It was progress, yes, but still a bit frustrating after how well he played. The first ten holes of Friday’s round was, in a word, disastrous. On a morning that was yielding some very good scores
because of benign conditions, we were +3 on the day, even par for the tournament, and in danger of missing a cut that we had absolutely no business missing. That’s when I called what was the caddie equivalent of a twenty second time out. After Hunter bogeyed the first hole, our tenth of the day, we had a little conversation. I basically just restated in a very simple way what we had talked about earlier in the week. We decided Hunter needed to just stop for a minute and start his whole week over right there and then. He needed to believe in his game as much
as everyone else around him did. Trust what he was doing. Forget the mechanics and let it go. There’s a saying in golf that you learn the golf swing so you can forget it. So when you get under tournament pressure you aren’t out there playing “golf swing,” but playing golf…seeing the shot you want to play, feeling the feels you need to play it and simply letting your body take over for your mind’s eye. We also decided to make one tweak to what he has been working on with the Stockton’s on his putting. While I understand the reasoning behind not taking a practice stroke, I just felt like that aspect of what the Stockton’s teach wasn’t really working for Hunter. So I very nicely (ha ha)asked him to go back to his practice strokes before putting for the next 8 holes and see what happens. If it doesn’t feel good, I would never ask again. I just felt he need to try and engage those last few feels before actually stroking the putt. That being said, I do not think we would have won without the work Hunter has done with both Dave Sr. and Dave Jr on his putting. I just felt that he hadn’t really connected to the lack of a practice stroke.

Luckily, our little twenty second time out did the trick. Hunter played the last eight holes on Friday in -4 to make the cut by two
shots and set up what would be an incredible weekend. It really goes to show you that any golfer, when going through a bad streak, has the ability to stop the downward slide with something as simple and strong as self belief. That’s really all the turnaround came down to.

After making the cut and getting some good feelings going, I knew Hunter was going to have a good weekend if we kept doing what we did on Friday afternoon. I just didn’t know it was going to be as spectacular as it was!!! Statistically, Hunter hit an astounding 42 of the last 44 greens we played, including 5 of the par 5’s in two!!! That is ballstriking on an unparalleled level. Freakishly good and owing a lot to the work Hunter has done with Sean Foley…in my mind the best teacher in the game.

The last thing I’ll say is how I approached the final round as a caddie. What I was thinking at certain points, and why we played certain shots the way we did. I knew we had a chance to win, but I was thinking we needed to shoot 7 or 8 under to have a chance. I just felt like the leaders would shoot 2-4 under at least, and we would need to have a spectacular day to catch them. So while a player can only play one shot at a time, can only plan for one shot at a time, my job is to have an overall plan for the day,
periodically re-evaluate the plan, and to ALWAYS know our position. I can’t imagine not looking at a leaderboard like some players say they don’t. But that’s another topic…

As we started the day we didn’t really need to force the issue at all unless the people in front of us started going crazy. We just wanted to get off to a good solid, mistake free start, and go from there. Hunter did this wonderfully, splitting the fairway and hitting the green on the first six holes before finally making our first birdie with a 9 iron to 6 feet on the sixth. A great up and down on the 8th and another birdie at the 9th and it was time to find out where we were, and to make any adjustments to the game plan as we walked to the tenth tee. I saw that at the time the leaders were not running away from us, and we were
only a shot behind at the time. Perfect position for the back 9. I got over to the tenth tee a couple of minutes before the rest
of the group and used this time to run through the back 9 in my mind. Figure out the back 9’s pin positions, potential safety plays, and potential aggressive plays and kind of develop what I though what we should do for the next 9 holes to give us the best chance to win. At this point, that’s all that mattered. You don’t get a ton of chances to win PGA Tour Events. There are so many great players out there that when you do get the chance, you have to take it. I couldn’t have cared less if we finish 2nd or 9th, to be honest with you, and I think Hunter feels the same at this point in his career.

So here was my thinking. Hole ten was set up fairly easily…a three wood and a short iron to a pretty easy pin position. Then, in my mind were the two most important holes of our day for us, 11 and 12. 11 is a long par 4 with water all along the left side of the hole, and 12 is a long par 3 off an elevated tee with water all along the right hand side. A mistake at either of those holes, and our chances to win would be seriously damaged. After that, I really felt that Hunter could birdie or eagle every
hole from 13 on. So as a caddie, although I don’t say this out loud, my plan was to play 10 aggressively, play 11 and 12 very smartly
for pars, then let out the reins and let Hunter shoot at every pin on the way in.

Hunter parred 10, then hit a spectacular 4 iron from the right rough on 11 to about 25 feet and almost made the putt there. As we stood on the 12th tee, I really felt for the first time all day if we could walk away from here with a three, we had a great chance to win the tournament. I think we trailed Y.E. Yang by a shot at that point, who was going crazy in front of us, and led Rickie Fowler by a shot or two. So as I figured out the yardage, the adjustment for the downhill and the slight wind into us, logically, the choice was a perfect 4 iron. We had a bit of a wait as the group in front of us finished, and the more I thought about the shot, the more I didn’t like the four iron. While I knew it would take a four iron to get all the way back right pin placement, if for some reason the wind lies down a touch or the ball goes 20 feet left or right, it’s either in the back bunker, dead, or in the water to the right.
So I had made up my mind what my argument would be if Hunter wanted to hit the four. Hunter is incredibly trusting of me, and if I have solid reasons for something that logically may not seem right at first, he’ll usually go with me. Luckily this was the case here. When it came time for Hunter to play, I gave him the numbers and he said “Perfect 4 iron, right?” Because
I had gone through all this in my mind before he asked, and because two holes ago on the tenth tee I had made up my mind that we needed to be smart and patient on 11 and 12, I was ready with my answer. “Yes, I said, to get it all the way back to the pin, it will take a four iron, But my thinking here is this…If you hit a good full five, you will definitely have enough club
to get to the middle of this green, probably 30 feet short or the hole, and take all the trouble completely out of play.” He agreed and hit the most rock solid 5 iron you could imagine, right on his line, about 30 feet short of the hole. A simple two putt and I felt like we could now step on the gas and go win.

Which is exactly what H would do. Hunter proceeded to hit a three wood from 261 to about 8 feet on 13 for eagle, birdie 14, and birdie 16, and win his second tournament by a shot over the amazingly good Rickie Fowler. A word about the birdie on 16…and this is something I have
discussed with other caddies on tour and have used for about the past five years on that hole. No matter what the yardage is or what you think the hole is playing, it ALWAYS plays shorter because of the incredible amount of extra adrenaline provided by the insane crowds on that hole. We had 157 there, a slight bit of help, and again, logic would tell you it’s a 3/4 eight iron. Well, I HATE letting a player try and play a little shot there. I want them to hit something really full, because to try and throttle back on that hole, in contention, no less, is asking too much of a player, if you ask me. Swing full, let it go, and invariably
you get 5-7 extra yards out of any club you decide to hit there, which is what happened. A 9 iron from 157 to about 14 feet, and we had the final birdie we needed.

There is NOTHING like winning a golf tournament, as a player or a caddie. You would gladly trade ten top tens for one win any day of the week. So to partner with Hunter and follow a plan to a tee was an incredible feeling. We are now really set up to have a great great year, and as my great friend Freddy Burns said to me in a voicemail…“You know it’s a Ryder Cup year,
so it’s good to see you and Hunter getting on the J-O-B.”

If there’s anything to learn from this that you could apply to your game, I think it’s very important to think like a caddie sometimes
before the round. Have an overall game plan for the day, while you are playing, ONE SHOT AT A TIME, like Neale says. But as you are warming up either for a club championship or a little match with your buddies, know what holes suit you to be aggressive on, know what holes to play conservatively, if for no other reason than to know you won’t be caught off guard by a decision that you have already made hours earlier!!!

Until next time, thanks for reading,

John