When Adam Hadwin took his anger out on a sprinkler head at the 2025 Valspar Championship, you could see the instant regret on his face. The guilt was even more apparent when the sprinkler started uncontrollably spraying cold water all over the place.
But the sprinkler-smash heard ‘round the golf world was out of character for the mild-mannered Canadian pro.
Evidence of that came this week when he made things right by offering a touching gesture to the greens crew tasked with cleaning up the mess he had made.
Hadwin smashes sprinkler
In Friday’s second round of the Valspar at Innsbrook’s Copperhead Course, Hadwin got frustrated after a squirrelly chip and slammed his club into the ground as he walked away. Unfortunately for him, a sprinkler head was hidden underneath the grass, and his club made direct contact with it.
Angry pro smashes sprinkler at Valspar, absolute chaos ensues
“I didn’t know there was a sprinkler there when I struck the ground, so I was really more embarrassed than anything else,” Hadwin said this week. “Everyone who has ever played golf knows how frustrating it can be, but I have to control myself a little bit more. I’ve got no excuse but to gain control out here.”
He then joked, “I guess my real motivation is to give my wife [Jessica Hadwin] less to tweet about.”
But this week, he gave his wife Jessica something positive to post.
Hadwin hooks up greens crew
While the sprinkler took most of the impact from Hadwin’s club, the maintenance crew at the Copperhead Course were the ones who had to deal with the aftermath. And Hadwin crafted a plan to ensure they knew he was sorry and appreciated their efforts.
On Friday, Ryan Stewart, director of agronomy at Innisbrook, revealed the pro’s payback plan. According to Stewart, Hadwin not only paid for the sprinkler that he broke, but he also bought the Innisbrook maintenance staff lunch to apologize.
“A big thank you to Adam Hadwin @jessicahadwin for paying for that sprinkler head and buying our staff lunch,” Stewart wrote on X.” That was a great touch and our staff loved it. Thank you again.”
Stewart also shared a photo of his staff enjoying the meal Hadwin bought for them, which appears to be a huge buffet-style spread of Chipotle.
With that out of the way, the Hadwins can now get back to more important matters, like messing with Tiger Woods on social media.
