Chesson Hadley’s big leap

Chesson Hadley needed golf’s version of a Hail Mary to keep his PGA TOUR card last season. He hopes he won’t need it this time around. “Last season was not a great ball-striking year, unfortunately,” said Hadley, 34, who will make his second start of the new season at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi. While he probably won’t start in earnest until after Thanksgiving, the 2014 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year is embarking on some changes to shore up those tee-to-green deficiencies. He began working with a new swing coach, Raleigh-based Chase Duncan, 37, in early August. “I like to try to keep it as simple as possible,” Duncan said. “Initially I’ll help him understand his current pattern, and we’ll work on the takeaway, getting a good feel for the clubface coming back. Not big changes. I’ve been impressed how much he likes to eat for such a skinny guy.” Indeed, Hadley’s feast-or-famine 2021 suggests he’s not far away. Although he ranked 169th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green last season, he was 11th in SG: Putting and very nearly won. At the Palmetto Championship at Congaree in June, he was the 54-hole leader by four but bogeyed the last three holes to lose to young South African Garrick Higgo by a shot. “I can only imagine what it looked like on TV because it looked freakin’ awful from my view,” he said afterward. “I mean, I could barely keep it on the planet. That 8 iron from the fairway on that last hole is inexcusable. I just didn’t have it today.” He redeemed himself with a T15 at the Wyndham Championship in August. Having begun the tournament languishing at 132nd in the FedExCup, and tied for 51st place going into Sunday, he looked destined to miss the Playoffs and lose his TOUR card. The rest is flying-giraffe history: Hadley got off to a hot start, made his first-ever hole-in-one – leaping into the air with the grace of “a flying baby giraffe,” he said later – birdied his last hole, and shot a final-round 62. Would it be enough? All he could do now was wait. He was at a Bojangles drive-through (very on-brand) with his father, Russell, on their way back to Raleigh when the TOUR’s Tom Alter gave him the news. With Justin Rose’s three-putt bogey on 18, Hadley had slipped into the 125th spot to keep his card and get into the Playoffs lid-lifter, THE NORTHERN TRUST, by one FedExCup point. “I’ll remember everything about that day,” Hadley said. “I had my food in my lap and was waiting to eat until I had the full run-down. There was some screaming, some crying. It was great to have something to celebrate with my family because it didn’t feel like there was a lot to celebrate the last 18 months or so. We just opened a bottle of wine. “We have a couple that we’re really close with,” he continued, “and we had them over for a small celebration because I had to get on a plane for New York the next day.” He missed THE NORTHERN TRUST cut, ending his season, but he had spared himself a trip to Boise for the start of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. He felt relief for himself, but also for his wife, Amanda. “And she was certainly emotional because she feels like she’s been all by herself while I’ve been trying to do all this,” he said. “I did not want to go to Boise for lots of reasons. That’s a long way away from home. My family wasn’t going to be able to come. My kids are starting school. “So Sunday was huge professionally,” he continued, “but it was also really big personally just because I could be with my family more. It was just such a relief.” Given some time to reflect, Hadley believes Congaree, in South Carolina, and Sedgefield, in North Carolina, were connected by more than a common state border. “I think one of the reasons why I did so well the Sunday at Wyndham is because of the Sunday at Congaree,” he said. “It had been a while since I had been in that position, and I didn’t handle Congaree the way I wanted to, but I learned a lot.” Specifically, Hadley was able to find a way to close even as he felt his command wobbling at the Wyndham. He was in the fifth fairway at Sedgefield when he told his caddie, David Cooke, that he was starting to see some squirrely shots and they needed to make a quick fix. “I was kind of hitting it a little bit loose,” Hadley said. “I told him, ‘I feel like we need to make an adjustment.’ Which is something I didn’t do at Congaree when it was getting crooked. So I just kind of did that, I put a little more left lean, a little more weight left, so that I wouldn’t fall back on it. It was the right adjustment because I hit some really good shots coming in.” Like the ace at the 160-yard, par-3 16th hole, with a 9-iron. Amazingly, it wasn’t just his first hole-in-one on TOUR, it was his first anywhere despite being an 11th-year pro. The trails of his previous few years were apparent during Hadley’s tearful post-round interview with CBS’s Amanda Balionis. “I’m not just out here for fun,” he said. “This is my job and I love it and I care very deeply about it.” Then he made fun of himself for crying, and his giraffe jump. This week he returns to one of his favorite places on TOUR, the Country Club of Jackson, where he finished second behind Ryan Armour in 2017. That result that was sandwiched between a T3 at the Fortinet Championship and a T4 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas. When he’s on top of his game, Hadley is very, very good. He’s working on it.

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