AUGUSTA, Ga. — This much is clear: Tyrrell Hatton plays better when he feels comfortable.
The World No. 9 is playing the best golf of his life. In January, he won his first-ever PGA Tour event, and he’s stayed on fire since golf’s return, adding his fifth European Tour title just last month. So what’s the secret (besides those much-discussed hoodies)? Speaking at Augusta National Tuesday morning, he credited each victory to a comfortable, homey feeling.
“We’re all humans, our emotions change from day to day,” Hatton said. “I think for me at Wentworth, the two weeks that I had at home prior to that was massive. Obviously I had been away for eight and a half months, so to actually be in my own house, in my own bed again, was great. I just felt happy.”
One particularly important family member to see was his father, who doubles as his swing coach. They worked on a simple tweak they’ve been focusing on for years — making sure Hatton doesn’t get too far outside on his backswing and too steep at the top — and voila: he won, fulfilling a childhood dream.
But he wasn’t just comfortable at Wentworth. Hatton felt that same comfort at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he said.
“It was a similar feeling for me at Bay Hill,” he said. “I was just pretty comfortable. We stayed in the house that we’ve rented at Lake Nona for the last couple of years, and that week we had a few people in the house, which was nice.”
This brings us to Masters Week, where Hatton is trying to find some similar comforts. He hasn’t played well in three previous Masters starts — his best result is a T44 — and missed the cut at both major championships this year, despite his strong form. To get settled, Hatton and his team are staying in familiar quarters: the same rental house they had in 2018.
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“We’re in a house this week about 20 minutes away,” he said. “It should be good fun. We have got a nice little pool and a hot tub, so no doubt I’ll be relaxing in there after rounds and stuff. We actually rented the house in 2018, so it’s quite nice kind of going back to something that feels familiar.”
That’s when Hatton dropped a line that caught our attention.
“I just hope that my manager doesn’t leave a knife in the oven this year and melt it,” he said.
Wait, what?
As it turns out, Hatton’s manager left managed to leave a knife in a dish that went in the oven, which had deleterious effects on the knife — and, we’d imagine, on the meal, too.
“It was a little awkward note at the end of the week,” Hatton said with a grin. “Sorry about the knife.”
I have plenty of questions still unanswered about the situation, including the extent of the damage and the story behind the knife ending up in the oven in the first place, but this is Augusta National, where the press conferences always run on time. To his credit, though, Hatton did make the situation right. “We found the knife set on Amazon, so we left the money for a new knife set,” he said.
Burnt knife memories aside, Hatton says he’s as well-prepared as he has ever been going into a major championship. He’s in good form. He’s well-rested. And he’s staying in a familiar house.
“I’m hoping that I can be in a good place this week,” he said. “I feel fine at the moment, and I’m sure that will definitely help.”