PINEHURST, N.C. — Tyrrell Hatton shot two under. And 12 under (kind of).
To do the math here, one must know Hatton, who is passionate, so to say. Such was the case earlier this week ahead of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. The mood was dark. Practice rounds on Monday and Tuesday were hard. Greens were difficult to stick. Expectations were low.
Or high, if numbers are your metric.
“I’ve been an absolute head case, even more so in the practice days,” Hatton said Thursday. “I mean, I literally didn’t think I was going to break 80.”
But there was a plan. He’d take a practice swing. On 10, which is, by the way, waaaay in the corner of the course here.
“I was like, that actually felt right,” Hatton said.
Then he teed off on 10.
“Actually hit the fairway,” he said. “OK, that was a nice feeling.”
You know where this is going, despite Hatton thinking it maybe wouldn’t. A few days later, during Thursday’s first round, he carded a three-birdie, one-bogey 68. After 18 holes, he’s three back of leaders Patrick Cantlay and Rory McIlroy. And he’s a dozen strokes better than his prediction.
Was he trying to psych himself into things?
No, Hatton said. He wants the opposite. His answer was a moment of sincerity.
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“I mean, I wasn’t very happy when I was at the golf course,” Hatton said. “Tried to forget about it when I got back to the house that I’m staying in. Yeah, I mean, it’s hard. Like, in the moment, I can’t not be intense, frustrated, because I want to be able to play the best I can, give myself the best chance. At the same time, I have to try and sort of accept that it is a practice day. It would also be nice to have some sort of positive feeling in your golf swing going into a tournament like this. I guess we all know golf’s like a weird game, and things can change in a heartbeat, yeah. Today it felt better, which is a good thing.”
And here’s perhaps an ironic thing:
Hatton kinda thinks Pinehurst’s trickery may play to his favor, though his explanation is more Hatton-y.
“Yeah, I guess in some ways, with it being harder,” he said, smiling, “a lot of guys sort of losing their head, it sort of brings them to my level because I just lose my head every week. They can kind of experience what it’s like in my head for a week. But no, I mean, it’s a challenge. I’ve done really well today, but still hopefully three days ahead of us. It’s only going to get harder from here I think. Imagine they won’t be overly pleased there’s a couple of guys at five under.
“But yeah, I’ll go out there tomorrow, try my best, try to be in the fairways as much as possible, try to hit as many greens as I can. See what happens.”
One more question.
Through it all, does Hatton believe in the golf gods?
“Well, I feel like if there is a golf god, I’ve got a few in the bank, some good breaks,” he said. “Every golfer, we all think we’re the worst done by with the breaks that we get. Yeah, I think I’ve got a few in the locker, a few good ones.”
