Angry, frustrated, disappointed, disheartened. Adam Hadwin has felt all of those emotions and so many more in a PGA TOUR season where nothing seems to have worked.
But surrender, give up and walk away to live a comfortable life on the millions he has made as a professional golfer? Not a chance.
In a candid interview this week at Morgan Creek Golf Course, where Hadwin hosted his annual charity golf tournament to benefit the CHILD Foundation, he spoke about facing the prospect of possibly losing his PGA TOUR status and the emotional toll this season has taken on him.
“Professionally, obviously it has been a very difficult year,” Hadwin said. “I have been used to a certain standard the last number of years and this year has not lived up to that standard at all. I feel I have been working as hard as I ever have. It doesn’t feel like I have slacked off or it’s a commitment thing or anything.
"The hunger is still there, but for whatever reason I haven’t been able to produce, which has been difficult. There have been years where there have been ups and downs, but the ups have been a lot higher. This year I haven’t really had any of those ups. I had a nice finish in Phoenix back in February and since then it has been tough.”
This is Hadwin’s 11th year as a full-time player on the PGA TOUR. For most of those seasons, especially the last few, he has been a consistent player who missed very few cuts and made lots of money. All that changed this year.
Adam Hadwin Doesn't Want To Sit On His Lone PGA TOUR Win At The Valspar - image credit Kelly Murray
Hadwin currently sits 139th on the FedEx Cup points list and faces the real prospect of losing his exempt status. He must move into the top 100 to retain full exempt status for 2026 and Hadwin is running out of opportunities. Only six events remain on the PGA TOUR’s fall schedule and Hadwin will only get into five of them. He will not draw into next month’s Baycurrent Classic in Japan.
Hadwin makes no attempt to sugar-coat his situation. “Obviously I don’t want to have to go back to Q-school, I want to have full status again on the Tour and know that I have a job and I can pick and choose where I play. There is a lot of work ahead of me, but it’s not impossible.”
One of the cold realities of life on the PGA TOUR is that each year you must play well to keep your job. Things got that much tougher this season when the tour dropped its number of fully exempt cards to 100 from 125.
Hadwin has thrived the last decade facing that pressure each year, but acknowledges that what he is facing now has been much more difficult to deal with. “I would say it has maybe given me some perspective on life in general,” Hadwin said of the fight to save his job.
“You hate to think that this might be it, I certainly don’t feel like it is. I came off two pretty good years the last couple of years, but certainly you go through all of those emotions and start thinking like, what if. You run through those worst-case scenarios a little bit, but I have a lot of hunger and drive to do this.
"I still feel like I am pretty young (he’s 37), I feel like I have a lot of good years ahead of me, so I am putting my head down, I am going to continue to work as hard as I can, go try and have fun while competing and sort of embrace these last five events and really just see if I can pull myself out of it.”
And if he can’t? Hadwin does not dodge the question about the possibility of having to return to play much of his golf next year on the Korn Ferry Tour. “Oh yeah, I am not done,” he said. “I am still at a stage where I am going to give it my all until it’s not good enough. Obviously you don’t want to go back down (to the Korn Ferry Tour), especially after 11 years now, but hey, that’s golf, man, and if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.”
Hadwin has struggled with changes he and coach Mark Blackburn have been working on to take some of the wrist rotation out of his swing. For much of his PGA TOUR career, even during his best years, Hadwin has battled a two-way miss. He could miss it left and he could miss it right. Hadwin wanted the consistency that fellow Canadian Corey Conners displays.
“Corey just kind of hits this little five-yard draw every single time. He knows what it is doing. If he’s not on, he is missing it right, it just kind of hangs out there and doesn’t draw back. He can eliminate sides of the golf course. I have struggled with that.”
The changes remain a work in progress. Despite a missed cut at the fall season’s opening event in Napa, Calif., Hadwin feels like he’s close. “It is something I thought I would have no problem playing through,” he said of the changes.
“Not that I would be super consistent, but I’d still have those two to five events a year where I have put it together, holed a few putts and finished in the top 10. You might not have made the playoffs, but you finish 75th or 80th and move on to the next year and you get close.
"But this year, for whatever reason, those putts haven’t dropped when I needed them, I haven’t gotten the ball up and down when I have needed to, haven’t the hit green when I have needed to.”
Hadwin, of course, has second-guessed himself about those changes, but felt he had to do something to keep improving. His play had plateaued. “I made the Tour Championship in 2017, but I haven’t been back since. I have been top 50 four or five of the last seven years, but I haven’t quite been able to get back to that next level, top 25 like Corey or Nick (Taylor). And I haven’t really quite gotten over that hump to win again, to consistently be there. So I have always just chased, what do I need to do to get there?”
While his professional life has been a challenge, Hadwin lights up when discussing his family, which includes his wife, Jessica, their five-year-old daughter Maddox, several dogs and probably soon, at least one cow.
Hadwin Sees More Dogs In The Family Future Along With Possibly A Cow - Image Courtesy Jessica Hadwin
Hadwin and Jessica recently purchased a home on 72 acres just outside her hometown of Wichita, Kan. They also own another 80-acre parcel they might one day build a house on. It’s not a spot Hadwin ever imagined he’d be, but he’s loving the life he is living off the golf course.
“At some point, I thought I might end up living in the States, but not in the mid-west, in Kansas on 72 acres.” he said with a chuckle. “The older you get, have a family and do all that, nothing beats it.”
And about that cow. “We won’t be raising cattle to sell beef or make beef, but I’m sure there might be a cow walking around pretty soon,” he said. “There will be more animals coming. There will be more dogs, too.”
So one day Hadwin might retire and become a gentleman farmer. But not now. He still has lots of golf to play.