Inside the Field: Sony Open in Hawaii

The first time Adam Hadwin met Mike Weir was not at a junior clinic or Canadian amateur event – when an up-and-coming star would usually connect with a country’s legend – but while they were sitting out a fog delay. It was 2013 at the Farmers Insurance Open and Hadwin had Monday-qualified. It was just the eighth PGA TOUR start of his fledgling pro career, and the first of three that season. By shooting 66-74 in the first two rounds at Torrey Pines, he was one shot ahead of Weir. Both made the cut but were well off the lead, as they were in the first two groups on Saturday. Due to the weather, the pair of Canadians had to keep retreating off the course. It was the perfect opportunity for them to finally meet and chat. Hadwin was in the midst of an up-and-down year on the Korn Ferry Tour and he’d go on to finish 74th on the money list, just barely earning his TOUR card again for the next season. Although Hadwin says he can’t remember exactly what was said that morning – he would eventually shoot 69 before withdrawing after feeling a twinge in his wrist, while Weir shot 73-76 to finish T-68 — perhaps the good vibes of meeting Canada’s winningest PGA TOUR golfer was the spark he needed. The next season, Hadwin won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour, gained his card and has been a fixture ever since. Hadwin, from Abbotsford, British Columbia, and Weir, from Brights Grove, Ontario, had never crossed paths before then. Hadwin knew of Weir of course, and respected what Weir had done for golf in Canada and the state of the game after his three wins in 2003, including the Masters. “He was playing some good golf for such a long time,â€� Hadwin said, “but I didn’t really know anything about him.â€� Being from different sides of the country – Abbotsford is roughly 2,500 miles from Brights Grove — and with Weir and Hadwin’s schedules being totally opposite at that time, there wasn’t much of an opportunity to become friendly. But after Hadwin himself qualified for the Masters in 2017 and made the International Presidents Cup team, a connection was made. The Presidents Cup continues to be the catalyst for their growing relationship. Just like in 2017 at Liberty National, Hadwin will play and Weir will be an assistant captain for the Internationals next month at Royal Melbourne. “As we’ve gotten closer to the Presidents Cup, we’ve texted a little more, been in touch some more. I’m a big advocate for all the Canadian guys, and will be for Adam especially that week,â€� Weir said. Every time Weir played the Presidents Cup, he was the lone Canadian. It was easy, he recalls now, to feel out of the pack. He looked around the team room and saw multiple Australians or South Africans having their own bonds. The Canadian contingent now is small, but mighty. Hadwin had to rely on a captain’s pick this year after making the team on merit in 2017. The team nearly had two Canadians, Weir noted, as he was pushing for Corey Conners to make the squad as well. Weir says he was hoping International Captain Ernie Els would have chosen both Corey Conners and Hadwin for this year’s team – it would have been the first time two Canadians would have made it. While Conners should be a stalwart for Presidents Cups in the future, (“He didn’t get the call this time but his game is certainly capable,â€� Weir explained.) Hadwin’s short-game skill and his year of experience eventually won him the spot. Weir was part of Nick Price’s staff at Liberty National and Els pegged him, alongside K.J. Choi, Geoff Ogilvy and Trevor Immelman, to join the team at Royal Melbourne. “We have great players in Canada. Adam, when it was on the line, played well when he needed to and had some good finishes,â€� Weir said. “That was important to Ernie – that our guys were playing well at the right time. He proved that he earned his spot on the team.â€� There have been just three Canadians to play the Presidents Cup, and Hadwin and Weir are the only two to play more than once (Graham DeLaet in 2013 is the other). Hadwin admits that it’s a “pretty incredibleâ€� feeling to be part of such a small group. “To represent that group on the international stage and represent golf in Canada as a whole is really special and something I take a lot of pride in,â€� he said. Hadwin says he’ll be more comfortable going into the Presidents Cup this time around, and some of that comfort can be attributed to his Presidents Cup connection to Weir – who knows a thing or two about representing golf in Canada on a big stage. Hadwin first leaned on Weir for specific advice when he qualified for the Masters after his maiden PGA TOUR victory at the Valspar Championship in 2017. Hadwin said Weir was very helpful in showing him around the spots at Augusta National and how the Masters week works. Weir was also there for him with any support he might need or questions he needed answered when Hadwin made his Presidents Cup debut later that year. Hadwin expects it to be more of the same this December. Hadwin had no preconceived notions of Weir or how he operated prior to them getting closer in 2017. Instead he found a helpful countryman, and a Canadian icon that did a “terrificâ€� job as an assistant captain in New York. Two years ago, Weir said he tried to make sure he brought Hadwin a level of confidence he needed to play well. Weir wanted to clear Hadwin’s path so then he could just concentrate on golf. Weir brings with him a myriad of experiences guys like Hadwin can lean on. He played in five Presidents Cups and complied a 13-9-2 record. In his five appearances, he never had a losing record. His 1-up win against Tiger Woods in Singles at the 2007 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal remains one of the top golfing highlights on Canadian soil. And, perhaps one day, those experiences will lead him to the captain’s seat. “If that opportunity comes up, I’d love that. I would be phenomenal. The Presidents Cup has been a big part of my career – some of my greatest memories in golf have come from it,â€� Weir said. And he’s got a supporter in Hadwin, who said Weir, from a personality standpoint and getting along with players, would “absolutelyâ€� make a good captain. But Weir potentially getting called on as captain is in the future. Both men acknowledge it’ll be a stern test in the present for the Internationals to take down the mighty Americans in December. The team will have a Canadian playing and a Canadian as an assistant captain once again, and their bond will grow over the biennial competition. Such is the spirit of the Presidents Cup. But they want to win, too. Hadwin says it’ll be on him to ask Weir a few more questions this time around – the conversations will pick up now that the fall portion of the PGA TOUR schedule has concluded – but he feels confident in how his game would travel to Royal Melbourne. “I think it could really suit my game,â€� Hadwin said of the course. The 31-year-old has had some success playing in Australia before, finishing T11 and T4 at the 2016 and 2018 ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf, respectively, at two Australian sand belt layouts. “This could be a pretty good opportunity for a guy with my type of game to do some damage.â€� And he’s got the support of his countryman once again this year. They’ll have their own growing bond, thanks to the Presidents Cup. “I’ll be on his side,â€� Weir said of his connection to Hadwin, “and whatever he needs, we’ll do the best we can to have him in a position to succeed.â€�

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The first draft of the script for “Caddyshackâ€� was 200 pages long – which was nearly twice the norm for Hollywood screenplays at the time. And believe it or not, the character named Carl Spackler, the wacky and wacked out assistant greenskeeper so central to the movie in its final form, was nowhere to be found. Oh, and what about that gopher? Well, Spackler’s nemesis started out as a mere sock puppet, appearing in just one scene where the rodent pops up and steals Al Czervik’s golf ball. Those are just two of the many interesting nuggets that can be found in Chris Nashawaty’s new book, “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story.â€� Nashawaty’s book came out in April of this year. It was born of a six-page oral history he wrote about the cult classic for Sports Illustrated in 2010, three decades after its release. The book is meticulously researched – witness the 27 pages of notes at the end of the book – and pays homage to a film that tops nearly every list of funniest sports movies. But Nashawaty, who has been the film critic for Entertainment Tonight for the last 20 years, does more than just take his reader behind the scenes of an 11-week shoot filled with drama and debauchery in south Florida. Nashawaty’s book also sets the stage, so to speak, for the movie by examining the friendship between Harold Ramis, who directed the film, and his co-writers and co-conspirators, Doug Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. Their bond had been cemented about a decade earlier when National Lampoon was at its zenith and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” was turning traditional comedy on its collective ear. Kenney and Ramis were fresh off the success of “Animal House,â€� which they had written with Chris Miller, when they pitched a series of irreverent comedies to Orion Pictures and Jon Peters, who was married at the time to Barbara Streisand. The one that got the greenlight became “Caddyshack,” which had its genesis in Doyle-Murray’s memories of his teenage years spent caddying at Indian Hill Club on the north shore of Chicago. Once Nashawaty turns the focus to the movie, which comes about 100 pages into the narrative, the book gains momentum. And with comic geniuses like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield on board, there were plenty of stories for him to tell. When Murray was hired to complete the “foursome,â€� as Nashawaty puts it, his character still didn’t exist, despite numerous rewrites to the script. Not to mention, with SNL about to resume production, he only had six days to devote to “Caddyshack,” but his brother, Doyle-Murray, promised him everything would work out. Much of Murray’s oft-imitated performance was ad-libbed – most notably the iconic “Cinderella Storyâ€� monologue. All the script said was: Carl, the Greenskeeper, is absently looping the heads off bedded tulips as he practices his golf swing with a grass whip. After changing the flowers to mums at Murray’s suggestion, the cameras rolled. And he did the entire sequence in one take. “I was good back in those days,â€� Murray tells Nashawaty. “I could do something when they turned the camera on. I was wired into what I was talking about. Improvising about golf was easy for me.â€� Anyone who has seen his antics at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am would certainly agree. And while he only had that one scene with the gopher puppet, Murray was frequently filmed trying to flush the critter out with a firehose he dragged around the course. It wasn’t until after filming was complete that the gopher took on a life of its own – eventually being created by a special effects company and at Peter’s suggestion assuming a bigger “roleâ€� to help to tie together the movie’s many disjointed but funny scenes. Murray loved doing battle with the gopher. “It was a time when people were making movies like the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now,â€� Murray recalls in the book. “And that was my Vietnam movie. The ridiculously inappropriate firepower I used to kill a small rodent.â€� Speaking of firepower, there was plenty at Bushwood, aka Rolling Hills Golf Club, in Davie, Florida when the final scene was shot. Peters had taken the unknowing high-ups from the club to dinner and on an evening cruise as a diversion – but the proverbial jig was up when the explosions made the TV news and prompted a pilot to radio the nearby Ft. Lauderdale airport to report a crash. The damage to the Rolling Hills — which once hosted the likes of Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath — was minimal, though. Nashawaty’s book also delves into the complicated relationships between Chase and Murray, highlighting a fight between the two at 30 Rock during the SNL days, and between Knight and Dangerfield. Knight, a decorated war hero who won two Emmys for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” wasn’t exactly thrilled with being the straight man to Dangerfield’s ribald style of comedy. In the end, “Caddyshack,” wasn’t the comedic blockbuster Ramis, Doyle-Murray and Kenney had hoped, that distinction, instead, going to the movie “Airplane.” As the years have gone on, though, “Caddyshack” has more than found its niche and this book is a tribute to its popularity.

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BLAINE, Minn. – When Bryson DeChambeau got his first look at TPC Twin Cities on Tuesday, he thought 14 or 15 under might end up being the winning score at the inaugural 3M Open. Turns out, he only needed two rounds to get there, though. Not four. So DeChambeau has to readjust his goals now after Friday’s course-record-tying 62 left him at 14 under and leading by four. The bogey-free round of 9 under matched Scott Piercy’s number on Thursday, a performance that DeChambeau said “opened the floodgates a little bit.â€� It was also the lowest score the 25-year-old has ever shot on the PGA TOUR. “Certainly, me doing that today inspires me to even do better over the weekend,â€� DeChambeau said. “I know I can do it. I know I still left a couple out there, lipped out a couple short putts. Although I made a lot of putts, I’m not going to take that for granted.â€� Charles Howell III, who played with DeChambeau and Keegan Bradley in the first two rounds, finished with a 66 that included a pair of eagles, one of which came courtesy of a wedge from 80 yards on the par-4 seventh that sucked back into the hole. As good as his own round was, though, Howell came away impressed. “Well, playing with Bryson, it was ‑‑ it was a good round,â€� Howell said when asked about his 5-under tally. “Not great. It was great playing with a guy going low out there, especially coming to a new venue where you quite don’t know what to expect. “You see these guys keep pressing and pressing like he was doing. He kind of drug Keegan and I along with him.â€� Bradley couldn’t quite keep pace with DeChambeau and Howell, shooting a 68 that left him 4 under for 36 holes. But he added to the highlight reel when he drained an improbable 61-footer at the second hole, his fourth birdie in the last five holes. Howell said seeing DeChambeau play so well set the tone for the round. “Bryson was obviously, he had two great days of putting, so it’s nice as a golfer to see balls going in the hole and see guys going low and doing well,â€� Howell said. “Yeah, and whatever you may want to call that, drafting, whatever it may be, it matters I think, yes.â€� DeChambeau has not made a bogey this week. He’s finding fairways, nine in each of the first two rounds, and was spot-on with the putter on Friday, making five birdie putts of more than 19 feet. “Whenever I can roll a couple putts in from 20 feet or more, that gives you a lot of confidence for the game,â€� DeChambeau said. “And when you’re striking it well and driving it where you’re looking, that’s obviously very positive. “I know it’s cliche to say that, but it’s just what it is unfortunately. Kind of get into a rhythm a little bit, the zone, and it just feels good sometimes.â€� 

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