Brooks Koepka looms at The Open, be he needs to make putts

The ball is round, weather is variable, equipment occasionally breaks. And then there’s COVID. Still, it’s time to predict what’s in store for the year ahead. So, let’s get right to it. Here are 10 things that absolutely, positively will go down in 2022, because they simply must, or we want them to, or something like that. Full disclosure: If even nine of these come to pass it would be amazing, eight would be impressive, seven pretty darn good, six not bad at all, five a very solid effort, four … 1. Rickie and Xander win again A victory for Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele would break a three-year drought for each. Fowler’s last win came at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, while Schauffele’s last win on TOUR – which doesn’t include his Olympic gold — came at the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. That Schauffele didn’t win last season owed to lousy timing, with poor final rounds at the Waste Management Phoenix Open (71, T2) and the Masters (72, T3). You know it’s in him: He got up and down on the last hole to win the Olympic gold medal. His final-round scoring average was 69.22, 15th on TOUR, but his Round 3 average was 70.28, 85th. He’ll fix it. As for Fowler, whose 11-year streak of making the FedExCup Playoffs ended with a thud, the tee-to-green game is solid, but not so his work on the greens. No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Putting as recently as 2017, he was 126th last season as he wound up 134th in the FedExCup. Now that his tee-to-green swing changes have solidified, Fowler must find a way to make the putts fall again. When he does, he’ll turn the close calls – T3 at THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT in October (third-round 63) – into wins again. He’s still only 33. 2. Tiger returns at St. Andrews The Old Course at St. Andrews, where the Royal & Ancient folks and everyone else will toast the 150th playing of The Open in July, is flat as a pancake and thus relatively easy to walk. The tournament is not for another seven months, giving Woods plenty of time to get stronger. Oh, and he’s won two of his three claret jugs at St. Andrews. There’s always a chance Woods could surprise us and pop into Augusta for the Masters, but the guess here is the course is too hilly, and treacherous, for him to make that his first week back. Also, although it’s barely any sort of prediction, Woods and his son, Charlie, will tee it up again at the PNC Championship in December, only this time they’ll turn that runner-up into a W. 3. Scheffler and McNealy get first wins Look for the teammates from the United States’ historic 2017 Walker Cup team – the roster also included Collin Morikawa, Cameron Champ, Will Zalatoris, Doug Ghim and Doc Redman – to enter the winner’s circle in the same season. Stanford alum McNealy did a lot right at the Fortinet Championship at Silverado last fall, other than a stretch of four bogeys in seven holes in the third round. His 70-68 weekend just wasn’t enough as he got pipped by fellow Bay Area product Max Homa of Cal (65-65) by a shot. McNealy is only 26, he’s getting better every season, and he knows how to win. It’s coming. Don’t be surprised if that win comes in his native Northern California, as he’s also played well at Pebble Beach the past two years. Meanwhile, it hasn’t been that long since Scheffler beat Jon Rahm in singles at the Ryder Cup. If he can do that, he can win on TOUR; all it’s going to take is a hot putting week. He already has two top-5s this season, including a runner-up at the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Open, and is on the precipice of the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking despite his lack of a TOUR victory. That’s testament to how steady he is. He closed 2021 by finishing second in the unofficial Hero World Challenge. 4. Homa will win a major or THE PLAYERS True, Homa can sometimes be the last guy to believe in his own greatness, but of his three wins, two have come on major-quality venues (2021 Genesis Invitational at Riviera, 2019 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow). What’s more, there was something bloodless and clinical about his 65-65 weekend for his third and most recent victory, at the Fortinet Championship last fall. Of course, a win in one of these big events would help him return to the site of his maiden win for the 2022 Presidents Cup. Keep an eye on him this year. 5. Ancer and Smith lead Presidents Cup upset The International Team banked invaluable self-belief in its narrow loss in 2019. The U.S. stars routed Europe in the Ryder Cup and almost NEVER lose the Presidents Cup. Yep, conditions are ripe for an upset. Ancer was the surprise of the 2019 Presidents Cup, going 3-1-1 to tie Sungjae Im as the top point-earner for the Internationals. Smith, who just edged Jon Rahm to capture the Sentry Tournament of Champions, beat Justin Thomas in Singles to go 1-1-1 last time around in Oz. Those two rising stars give Trevor Immelman’s International Team a toughness they’ve rarely if ever had, and when you add veterans Marc Leishman, Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen; ultra-steady Im; resurgent Branden Grace; plus Joaquin Niemann, Mito Pereira, and perhaps Garrick Higgo, this team looks poised to shock the world at Quail Hollow. 6. Spieth wins the Masters – or The Open Spieth and the Masters are the perfect marriage of man and major. The good times, of course, included his maiden green jacket in 2015, when he basically won everything that wasn’t nailed down. He was cruising for a successful title defense in ’16 until a water ball on 12 sunk his chances (T2). He was T11 in ’17 (final-round 75), solo third in ’18, and T3 last season, after breaking his win drought a week earlier at the Valero Texas Open. With his game back in full force, Spieth is primed to collect his second green jacket. And don’t forget about The Open at St. Andrews, where he finished a shot out of a playoff in 2015 while pursuing the Grand Slam. 7. Mickelson wins the Schwab Cup In November, Lefty joined Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win four of their first six starts on PGA TOUR Champions at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship. But Mickelson didn’t play in enough tournaments amongst the 50-and-over set to win the season-long Schwab Cup points race, which was won once again by Bernhard Langer. This time, Mickelson will win the marathon and the sprint. Of course, predicting anything Mickelson-related is risky, and after his moonshot victory at the PGA Championship last year he’s at liberty to keep teeing it up with the big boys at big events like the U.S. Open (his white whale). And he will. But now he also has a taste for Champions competition, too; he’s realized he enjoys playing with (and beating) guys his own age. The guess here is Mickelson will find time to hang with the young guys and beat the old guys, too, at least enough times to take home the trophy for the season-long competition. 8. Two others besides Rahm will touch No. 1 It’s tempting to say Rahm can’t be caught at world No. 1, what with his birdie-filled performance at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, where he finished a shot behind winner Cameron Smith. And given what we’ve seen since Rahm regained the top spot with a T3 at The Open last summer, he deserves to be there. He’s the best player. And yet … Rahm is human, he can’t play every week, and the level of talent at the top in 2022 is staggering. Given the neck-snapping trajectories of Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland, surely one or two will reach the top spot at least briefly. Morikawa already would have done so absent his freakish bad final round at the Hero World Challenge. And what about a comeback for former No. 1s Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, and/or Justin Thomas? Yes, Rahm is the best player, but it’s just too crowded at the top. 9. Burns and Mitchell make the U.S. Presidents Cup Team Burns is a no-brainer, what with his recent exploits. The only surprise, perhaps, is he wasn’t on the super-stacked U.S. Team that dusted Europe at the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. Mitchell has fought inconsistency but is trending in the right direction with a T3 (THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT) and T12 (The RSM Classic) last fall. Also encouraging: his three straight birdies to top-10 at THE NORTHERN TRUST and play his way into the BMW Championship. Oh, and Rory McIlroy praised his game last year after they duked it out at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, which as fate would have it hosts the Presidents Cup this year. 10. DeChambeau will get even longer With moonshots that topped out at around 400 yards, DeChambeau, the two-time reigning PGA TOUR driving distance champion, finished in the elite eight in his first crack at the Professional Long Drivers World Championship in Mesquite, Nevada, last fall. He loved the event’s smash-and-flex vibe and promised to return. He’ll do even better this time, his commitment to speed and innovation wowing fans as he powers his way to a final-four finish on the grid.

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About an hour after Adam Hadwin’s first PGA TOUR victory at the Valspar Championship this March, he had begun to fulfill his media obligations and was chatting with his soon-to-be wife Jessica, when something hit him. He celebrated his tournament-winning putt with a double fist pump and a bit of a holler, and he was overwhelmed with concern, as he thought he might have rubbed some people – including his playing partner that day, Patrick Cantlay – the wrong way. “Total Canadian in me,â€� Hadwin says with a laugh. “I know. I was crazy for thinking that.â€� Flashing his signature smile across a bearded face, Hadwin admits he would, on one hand, enjoy ‘many, many’ March’s like the one he had earlier this year, but on the other, he says it would never want to go through that again. “It was crazy,â€� he admits. After Hadwin’s victory, he and Jessica hoped in a car and drove to the next week’s event, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. The following Saturday, the pair – they met while Adam was playing a Web.com Tour event in her hometown of Wichita, Kansas – got married in Arizona. Two days later, he and his now-wife closed on their first home in Phoenix. It was a whirlwind month, and a stretch of time that changed Hadwin’s life forever. And he wouldn’t trade it for anything. 59 Before Hadwin experienced the 31 days of March, there was another number that was top-of-mind. In the third round of the CareerBuilder Challenge Hadwin shot a 59, becoming the second TOUR member (Justin Thomas did it at the Sony Open) of 2017 to hit that score. The result catapulted him into contention. Although he admits now he didn’t feel the 59 convinced him that good things were on the horizon, he did think it was a sign that all the work he had been doing up to this point in his career was starting to shine through. “I was so focused on trying to win the golf tournament that it went immediately there and that’s all I could think about. I had no time to appreciate what happened. When you have a round like that to get into position to win a golf tournament… more than anything I didn’t want to be that guy that flukes one round and then doesn’t have a chance in the final round,â€� he says. “I wouldn’t say that it’s been one event or one round that’s led me to believe that I can compete on the PGA TOUR, it’s just been a body of work.â€� Hadwin points to his previous best finish on the PGA TOUR as proof of how hard it actually is to contend (and win) on the TOUR. He finished tied for fourth at the RBC Canadian Open in 2011 in, essentially, his hometown (although he was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan – a fact that television announcers just can’t ignore because it sounds so typically Canadian – he’s spent almost his whole life in Abbotsford, British Columbia) at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club. He hadn’t matched that result on the TOUR in the nearly six years since. “It took three full years on the PGA TOUR to better that finish. Being out here and playing against the best players in the world and having success against them, it added up to that day,â€� he says of the Moving Day 59 in the desert. Hadwin couldn’t convert his 13-under par Saturday into a win that week, but he walked away from that tournament with a greater appreciation of those on TOUR who make it look easy. “You can shoot 65 one day and 75 the next day and nothing that much changes. That’s golf in a nutshell. A putt here, a bounce there, and you’re three or four shots worse that you were before and you think you played the same. Some would argue that some wins are more difficult than others, but a win is a win in my opinion,â€� he says. “It’s so hard to explain to people, especially when they see what Tiger did and what Jordan’s done and Rory… all these guys that are just playing so well. It’s so difficult. Everything needs to go your way. Every aspect of your game needs to be good. If one part is lacking it’s going to be exposed and you won’t win. To do that in one round, or a couple rounds is one thing, but to do that over all four days is even that much more difficult and that’s what makes it even harder.“ And 50 days after his 59, he’d prove just how difficult it is to find the PGA TOUR winner’s circle. Winning There were questions as to why Hadwin didn’t play the Honda Classic, since he was so close to being in the top 10 of the FedEx Cup standings, and he would have earned a spot in the WGC-Mexico. But he had a feeling there were going to be ‘plenty’ of World Golf Championships to play in, and all cards were just falling in their rightful place as Hadwin arrived in Tampa Bay, Fla. for the 2017 Valspar Championship. “I was rested. I was fully ready to go play… mentally, physically, (and) emotionally. I had some really good things coming up two weeks later… I was getting married. Life was good. I was in a good place,â€� he says. “I felt good with my game all year. I was close in the desert (at the CareerBuilder), and just had a really consistent year up to that point. Lot of good finishes, lot of consistency. It’s a tough golf course but thought it would suit my game. I think that’s what makes professional golf so hard to describe. I didn’t feel that much different going into that week versus any other week.â€� Hadwin shot a 3-under-par 68 Thursday at the Copperhead course, and didn’t think much of it, saying he was ‘kind of cruising along.’ Friday, though, was a different story. He fired a 6-under-par 29 on his back nine en route to a 7-under-par 65 and the 36-hole lead – his first on the PGA TOUR. But he says the follow-up round, the bogey-free 67 on Saturday, was even more impressive to him. “I put myself in a leading position after 36 holes… it was a big round for me for my career, to be honest. I went out and played bogey-free, mistake-free golf on Saturday in the pressure and in a situation I hadn’t been in and I was able to perform. It was a big round for me, and a big round for me moving forward in my career,â€� he explains. “I knew Sunday was going to be a difficult day as well. I had played very well the first three days, but I was still going to have to follow it up with another good round. If you’re just a little bit off it can bite you pretty quickly.â€� Unfortunately for Hadwin, he got bit, hard, and at the most inopportune of times. Cantlay had gone 5-under par for six holes through the middle of his round, and was nipping at Hadwin’s heels. Even when Hadwin got to the tee on the par-4 16th at the Copperhead Course, the tournament was far from over. And then it almost was. Hadwin blew his tee shot on No. 16 into the water, and had to scramble for a double bogey. He says now that he just tried to stay in the moment and get over what he had done, blocking out the noise as best he could. “I can remember the tee shot on 16 and hitting it into the water, and at no point did I ever start thinking that I was going to throw it away. I had zero negative thoughts. I just thought about what I needed to do next,â€� he says. “I never felt stressed about the situation. I just wanted to make the best bogey of the tournament. I made double but then moved on to 17 and 18. It was just the next golf shot and what I needed to do. There wasn’t any other pressure.â€� On the 17th tee, Hadwin had a bit of a viral-sensation moment. His caddy, Joe Cruz, began unleashing a string of caddy-type talk about yardages and going back-and-forth on which club to choose, and Hadwin, although the politest of Canadians, had had enough. With his eyes on the green of the par three, told Cruz he was going to “hit the s—tâ€� out of his 6-iron, to which Cruz said, “yeah.â€� Sports and pop culture blogs picked up the exchange, and Hadwin still laughs as he recalls receiving a text from his brother later that evening saying he knew his brother had ‘made it’ because a popular men’s blog had written a story about Hadwin’s on-camera flub. “It was just one of those weird situations. That’s not the first time I’ve said that,â€� Hadwin says, chuckling. “That happens. In the situation it got caught and people found it funny. But that’s where we were at in the round.â€� He parred 17 and came to 18 with the tournament still not over. Hadwin did what he needed to do to put the pressure on Cantlay, and Cantlay didn’t attack the 72nd with the same kind of vigor he had been showing earlier in the day, finding the greenside bunker. 

Still, Hadwin was thinking Cantlay was going to get up-and-down and force a playoff. Hadwin had missed the green on 18 and still had to chip and putt for a par, and, it turns out, the win. “When he hit the bunker shot, it wasn’t a gimmie, so I wanted to increase that pressure on him. I didn’t want to leave it three or four feet short and give him an out, where he can take the pressure off of himself. I wanted to put as much pressure as possible on him. I bellied a wedge, judged the speed perfectly. I lagged it down to a distance where I felt like, even if I couldn’t keep my hands on the club, I could somehow get it in,â€� he recalls, laughing. “I do remember standing there and when he missed his putt, I looked over at Jess and thought, ‘holy crap this is real. This is going to happen.’ I didn’t have to grind over a putt… this is happening. It’s going to happen. It was a very surreal moment to stand on a green and know that you’re going to win.â€� Life Changer At this point, Jessica, who had been on site at the Valspar all week long, gave her soon-to-be-husband a smile, as he had looked at her with that hearty smile just seconds before. “It was funny because I was standing on the green and Patrick missed his putt for par and all Adam had to do was make that short putt and he looked at me and gave me this big grin. The cameraman looked at me because I was smiling and said, ‘oh he’s confident huh?’ and I was like, ‘I hope so!’ and he made the putt,â€� remembers Jessica. “For me, I was just so happy and proud for me because it actually happened. He had been in contention at CareerBuilder and I was there for that too. It was hard to watch him fight so hard and then miss. But at the Valspar I was just so happy that he was able to close the deal. I was super excited.â€� Jessica, 31, was working as a nurse at the time she met Adam, who turns 30 this year. Adam had missed the cut at the Web.com Tour event and the two went to dinner. Jessica remembers Adam being a good date and keeping good, normal conversation going. “He seemed intelligent, and he was very polite. He’s Canadian, so of course,â€� she explains. The couple embraced on the green after Adam had drained his winning putt, and all of a sudden, their life had changed. They drove the few hours up to Bay Hill for the next week’s event, and despite some extra media attention, Adam was trying to come back to ‘real life.’ And then he finished sixth, with a chance to win late. Again. Married Life Hadwin remembers his final stretch of holes in Orlando fondly – despite the fact that he made a double-bogey again (“On the 15th hole this time, not 16,â€� he says) and thinking he could have gone on a bit of a run and notched another top-3 finish. It was not to be, though, and it was time to get married. Adam and Jessica tied the knot on March 24th and nothing, even after the win, had changed in their wedding plan. Even though the guests of the Hadwin nuptials were in the presence of the latest PGA TOUR winner, that wasn’t the focus of the day. “It was nice, because you’re always hoping that the win didn’t overshadow the big day, that would be something the guests are focused on, but I don’t think anyone focused on golf,â€� says Jessica. “It was on us and the wedding and it was exactly how I hoped it would be.â€� Surrounded by family and friends, Adam wore a three-piece navy suit with a white shirt and pink tie, while Jessica had a classic gown with a bouquet of white and pink flowers. The couple said their ‘I Do’sâ€� at a sunset ceremony at an idyllic mountainside setting in Scottsdale. After the wedding, two days after, to be precise, the Hadwin’s closed on their first home, and some special mail arrived not long after that. For Adam, he received his invite to the 2017 Masters, and for Jessica, she received her PGA TOUR season-long credential that said ‘Jessica Hadwin’ – the first piece of official identification with her new last name. Jessica recalls how their home purchase came to be, as they were looking pretty seriously even before Adam’s win at a handful of homes in the Phoenix area. “We had seen it, and we went and looked through it, but it was over our budget. We went to look at it and I think he said jokingly, ‘if I win maybe we can look at it then’ so then we he won we thought we could do it. We saw it before the win and we said it was our dream home but we said we’d see, and then the next week he won,â€� says Jessica. “We had been looking at houses, and before we went to Tampa we went to five or six houses. That whole week in Tampa we were looking at houses online and we found one, and it was outside the price range we wanted. And then it suddenly became obtainable after (the Valspar),â€� echoes Adam, with a laugh. Funny how things work out. The Future For the Hadwin’s, their honeymoon plans were put on hiatus as the week of their trip to Bora Bora was scheduled for the time of the Masters – where Adam made a fine debut, finishing tied for 36th – but the trip which has essentially the same itinerary, according to Jessica, has since been rescheduled for December (“Unless something changes between then and now,â€� she says with a laugh). Adam hasn’t quite had the same level of success he experienced earlier in the year, and he admitted to reporters during The Open Championship a week ago that he has done a ‘terrible job’ of handing the pressure that comes along with being the top-ranked golfer in the country, and fighting for a spot on the Presidents Cup team. “I haven’t played that well since Bay Hill and bring more of the game I had the first couple months of the season,â€� he said. But despite the fact his performance on the course hasn’t been what he’s hoped for, off the course, things could not be better. It’s likely the Hadwin’s will never have another month like the one they had in March of 2017. They admit it was amazing, but they’re glad to have it in their collective rear-view mirrors. “I don’t think I would change March, even though it was pretty hectic,â€� says Jessica. “The win, playing well the next week, the wedding, closing on a house a couple days after the wedding… it was a little crazy there for a little bit, then we got to breathe,â€� continues Adam. “There was a lot going on, but all very good things which made it a lot easier.â€� Life comes at you fast, but for Adam Hadwin, it’s just getting started. No apologies necessary.

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