In this most unpredictable of sports, it doesn’t take long for an underdog to become a top dog, a zero to become a hero or a nobody to be transformed into a somebody.
James Hahn’s play-off victory on the PGA Tour at the weekend, in the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, was yet another reminder that golf really is a daft old game. It also sent out a message to all those toiling away that one good week can turn it all around.
Hahn went into the event having missed more cuts than an absent-minded barber – eight on the trot to be precise – but out of nothing he found something as he claimed the second tour title of his career.
"Once you start going five, six and seven (cuts in a row), you start thinking about doing other things,'' said the 34-year-old who admitted that his worst streak of missed cuts prior to his recent run was three in a row. "It's tough, it really is. The mind is a powerful thing and it was going bad for a while. I just didn't have the confidence and didn't believe in myself.
"I felt like I was putting in the work but wasn't getting any reward for it, so it made me not want to put in as much work because it's not gratifying. You're playing badly and you're missing cuts and there's nothing funny about that.''
A crisis of confidence is as much a part of golf as balls, tees and knifed bunker shots but after a heart-to-heart with his caddie after that eighth early exit on the spin, Hahn has weathered the mental storm and is now looking to add to his brace of tour triumphs.
"It was a relief to make the cut," admitted Hahn, who won last year’s Northern Trust Open in another play-off. "But we dream bigger than that. Making cuts on this tour is not something that I get happy about. Competing and having a chance to win on the back nine on Sunday is something that gets me up in the morning.
“I constantly remind myself that I'm good enough, that I belong out here. I was kind of chanting to myself that I can do this, I will do this and I must do this.”
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