THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Adam Hadwin here at the 2023 RBC Canadian Open. Adam, welcome. You're making your 12th start here at the tournament. We just want to start off with some opening comments what it's like to have a tournament here in Canada.
ADAM HADWIN: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously incredible to be back in Canada again. It's the one time a year that we get to go back or get to come back and showcase the best of the PGA TOUR in front of Canadian fans. And being Canadian means so much to me. I'm so proud to represent the Canadian flag everywhere we go internationally. To be able to come back on home soil and do it once a year is a lot of fun. We wish we could have more opportunities to do it, but this week is always a very special week for us.
THE MODERATOR: What does it mean to have the fan support out here and what do you expect for the week?
ADAM HADWIN: After last year at St. George's I think everybody expects a big week. The crowds are, were tremendous last year and we expect the Canadian fans to show up and support the event and the players and it's a lot of fun. It's a completely different week from every other week that we play as Canadians. There is a little bit of added pressure and I think we all feel it and we all want to be the one to kind of break the curse. But it's a lot of fun as well.
THE MODERATOR: Newer course, what is the history that you played here? How familiar are you with this course.
ADAM HADWIN: I have nothing. I don't know anything about it. I haven't even seen the golf course yet. So any questions relating to that won't be very useful. I'll play nine this afternoon and then nine in the pro-am tomorrow morning.
It looks, from the outside, fairly similar to what we've played the last couple years, Hamilton, St. George's and narrow fairway, thick rough, tree lined. So from the outside looking in so far it looks really good.
THE MODERATOR: Best finish here this season was with fellow Canadian Nick Taylor. How is your game feeling as we pass the halfway point?
ADAM HADWIN: I am cautiously optimistic about things. I've done a lot of really good things. I just haven't been able to put pieces together for four rounds in a while. A lot of mediocre finishes with some missed cuts in there. But I'm working hard. I do think that a lot of it is close. Sometimes it can be a matter of just kind of getting out of your own way sometimes. Which is the hardest thing to do. But I'm looking forward to sort of using some of that nervous energy this week with these crowds to kind of turn things around and have a good week.
THE MODERATOR: With that we'll open it up for questions.
Q. Let me be the guy to ask the question. When did you hear and what are your, what's your reaction to the news of the merger?
ADAM HADWIN: I read it, like most people, when it came out this morning. We were given an e-mail. I read through, we also got an e-mail with comments from Jay regarding it. I don't know. I'll be honest. I think that what's transpired like the last year and a half and the rhetoric, not only on this side but on that side as well, I think it's difficult to look at that and say, how did we get here now. I do believe that everybody probably saw eventually something happening. I don't know if it was a complete merger, quote unquote, like it is. But certainly the entities coming together or finding a way to coexist so that the best players could continue to play against each other more often and not just at the four majors right now. But in this way, I don't know if people saw it -- like I don't know if I ever saw it in this way. But beyond that there's so many details to be worked out and that haven't been talked about and discussed I don't know if I could go any further than that on it. Just too many unknowns.
Q. You mentioned the unknowns. What are some of the answers you're hoping to get from the player meeting later today?
ADAM HADWIN: I don't even know if at this point you could even get the answers that you would want. I don't even know if they have those answers yet. I think one of the big things will be moving forward is how are players re-integrated back into the system. If they are. I mean, again, we don't even know if they will be. I mean, so that being one of the big talking points throughout this year and a half from the commissioner about how these guys will never play on the PGA TOUR again, it will be interesting.
You know, I'm not privy to these conversations. I'm not high enough up to really even have the commissioner's ear. Which is fine. I understand how things run and businesses run. So as a very interested spectator I will be viewing things of how this all plays out. It just, like I said, I think that, I think anybody who thought about it logically would see that something was going to have to happen. You couldn't, you can't -- fracture is a strong word -- but can't take away the best players in the game and have them at separate events and only be together four weeks a year. It's not putting the best golf product forward. However, again, happening this quick and in this way is surprising.
Q. What are your concerns morally about the PGA getting into bed with LIV?
ADAM HADWIN: Man, you know, at this point without -- I don't know. I'm not one to start making absolute arguments here about doing this or doing that. Again, I am a player and I play golf and obviously I'm going to have opinions on things, but I don't have a say in how the TOUR's run. I don't have a -- like I've been doing this and tried to do this for the last 35, like 21 years of my life, to play golf professionally. At some point I can't control what the entity that I play for does. So can I do, can you do certain things as a player to stay away from it? Sure. But at some point, like I said, I've dedicated my entire life to being at golf's highest level. I'm not about to stop playing golf because the entity that I play for has joined forces with the Saudi government.
Q. What are your thoughts about this news dropping today and overshadowing the one time a year you get to play in Canada and probably will for the rest of the week?
ADAM HADWIN: Yeah, I thought about that coming here as well. I think it's -- you know last year was the return of the Canadian Open after having missed two. And it was going up against the first LIV event. And I know that that sort of overshadowed early in the week. Obviously with the event that took place it worked out as a massive win.
I can't help but feel sad for the Canadian Open, once again, that this news drops Tuesday of what is our National Open, a very important event for golf in Canada and hopefully viewed from the PGA TOUR's standpoint as an important event to them. Now once again we're overshadowed what, like you said, most likely for the entire week. My hope is that we end up with hopefully myself, if not myself two or three other Canadians in contention, with Rory, with Justin Rose, with Tyrrell, with these guys, these top players that are here and we can put the emphasis back on the event, that what happened last year. But I can't help but feel for the event now.
Q. You mentioned at the PGA Championship that you were interested in whether the new PGA TOUR model or LIV Golf model was sustainable. What does today's announcement tell you about that, if anything?
ADAM HADWIN: Obviously, I don't know specifics. Like I said, I'm viewing everything from sort of an outsider's perspective. I don't know the inner workings year to year of the TOUR, trying to run events and that. But, again, from like we discussed, from an outsider's perspective, pumping a bunch of money in that maybe wasn't there to begin with, is it sustainable. That's kind of what we talked about at the PGA. I am an outsider deducing that it wasn't. I'm an outsider saying that between the PIF and the way that LIV was running, they might have been hemorrhaging too much cash. I don't, again, I don't -- gosh, I mean, it's so hard not to get into some of this stuff, but, yeah, I don't know. There's a lot -- clearly there was a lot of things going on behind the scenes that nobody was aware of that between the two entities they decided that it was best moving forward if they got together.
Q. About a National Open, your National Open, compared to everything else that's going on, what is it about this tournament and tournaments like this that is maybe more towards the essence of why you got into this sport and what separates it from everything else that's happening today?
ADAM HADWIN: Yeah, I mean, I don't think that any one of us really got started to play for money, let's say. Obviously that is a large reason of why we do what we do. I get to live a very comfortable life traveling the world, playing a sport that when I first started playing I didn't have any -- I mean, I didn't know what was going to happen with it, to be honest. I grew up playing different sports. My dad was in the business, taught for a living. So I've been around it my whole life. I went out there when I first really started getting into golf and I enjoyed competing against myself, really. And I love the fact that I didn't have to lean on anybody. That's what I really love about this game. It sounds so selfish, but, you know, I remember playing high school sports and you would play and you could have the greatest game of your life and lose. Or could you have the worst game of your life and win. And I couldn't deal with that. Mentally, I didn't know how to get over that. Golf, if I play the absolute best that I can, I win. And if somebody else beats me, I shake their hand and I say congratulations. I can't do any better. And if I play like crap, I got to get better. I know that. It comes from me. So to come through all of that and now to be on the like the game's best stage in front of Canadian fans and to know that you have a chance to do something that hasn't been done since 1954 is, I mean, that's why we get up every morning and work as hard as we do to do that. So I really am looking forward to a great week. It's unfortunate that it's been overshadowed by this announcement.
Q. If you were to get in the mix on Sunday you're hearing obviously the Canadian crowd, would you lean on that and have them hopefully lift you up or would you try to block out that noise and just try and concentrate on the job at hand?
ADAM HADWIN: I mean, we're obviously trying to block out as much as we can, focus on the task at hand, hit the shots. But I think that I would be stupid not to think that an entire, hopefully, depending upon who I'm going up against, I'm sure that they're going to have a rooting interest in them as well. But hopefully have an entire country around me with me and to carry me home, I think that to be in that situation as a Canadian coming down the stretch, I think you need them. I think you have to embrace it and you have to feed off of it. I think trying to go against it and maybe fight it and block it out I think it would be too much to handle.
THE MODERATOR: All right. That's all the time we have for questions. Adam, thanks for taking the time and joining us. Good luck this week.
ADAM HADWIN: Thanks. Appreciate it.
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