Chesson Hadley has a simple goal for his first year on the PGA Tour: play well enough to remain on the Tour in 2015.
“I think a lot of people will say that’s a pretty low goal,” he said. “I’m keeping it realistic my rookie year. I’m out here to learn these courses, the travel, the PGA Tour atmosphere. So much going on and so much I have to learn.”
Hadley, a former All-American at Georgia Tech, will compete in his fifth tournament during the 2014 season when he tees it up at the Sony Open in Hawaii on Thursday.
Hadley already has one top-10 finish with more than $200,000 earned and was picked by a popular golf morning show as a rookie to watch this year. Hadley has the confidence to support that tag, but he also seems grounded enough to know that small steps may be necessary to one day reach bigger ones. He said he is applying lessons taught to him by his former Tech coach, Bruce Heppler, when he enrolled at Tech.
“He grooms his players for this moment,” Hadley said. “It’s been ground in my head since I was a freshman.”
That doesn’t mean Hadley doesn’t want to win or thinks he can’t win.
He has proved in his short time that he can compete. He tied for fifth at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, and his two wins on the Web.com Tour last year propelled him to the PGA Tour this season.
A typically slow starter, Hadley plans to play in a lot of events because he said he usually gets hot. It happened last year on the Web.com Tour. Hadley didn’t place better than 28th in his first seven events. Then he finished third at the BWM Charity Pro-Am and rode a streak that included five more top-10 finishes, including his first win at the Rex Hospital Open in his hometown of Raleigh, N.C., in his next nine events.
He cooled off and then finished with a tie for fourth at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship and a win at the Web.com Tour Championship.
He thinks something similar can happen this year.
“If I get my shot in 25-30 tournaments, I’m good enough player to catch fire in two, three four or those,” he said. “I’ll be there at the end of the year.”
Hadley has yet to play in a major and would like to qualify for this year’s Masters. If that doesn’t happen, he points to the U.S. Open, which will be played at Pinehurst No. 2, a course Hadley has played “more times than he can count” because it’s a short drive from where he grew up.
Hadley will travel the tour this year with his wife, Amanda, and their baby son, Hughes, whose lives he writes about on his blog, www.hadscorner.com.
“I’m trying not to take things for granted,” he said. “This could be the only year I ever play, you never know. We are going to try to take advantage; hopefully we will have a lot of years out here.”
Though it has taken longer to reach the PGA Tour than he thought after graduating from Tech in 2010 with a degree in business management, Hadley is OK with grinding his way to the big time.
“It’s not immediate sometimes; you have to pay your dues,” he said. “I think I’m right where I need to be. I don’t think I would have succeeded out here a couple years ago. I wasn’t mature as a person, golfer or husband.”
