"The first time I saw Hunter, he was a real quiet, very skinny 9-year-old," says his first teacher, respected Southern California club professional Tom Sargent. "He had a strong grip and a flat swing, and he hit nothing but low hooks. I put his hands in the proper position at the top, a drastic change, and told him to work on that. He came back in a week, and the club was absolutely perfect. I was flabbergasted. And that's basically the swing he's kept. He's just one of those guys with the look in his eye."
"What Hunter can do when he gets it going, you probably can't teach," says his regular caddie, John Wood, a former looper for hot-streaker extraordinaire Mark Calcavecchia. "And he can do it when it counts. The 2005 Q school was our first event, and he was in bad shape after three rounds. But there was no sense of panic, and he went out and shot 66-67-68 to make it easily. When Hunter's in that zone, I don't think he even knows what he's shooting."
‘This game is not there to give you good feedback. It's mostly frustrating.’
Adds Scott Verplank, a fellow Oklahoma State alum: "We stayed together at last year's U.S. Open, and what I saw was someone who's growing comfortable in his own skin. No telling how good he can get."
In the upward arc of his four years on the PGA Tour, Mahan has put a great deal of thought into making an endlessly complicated game simple.
"That's how I want to play golf -- with simplicity and naturalness," he says. "But we add so much crap to it. What I've had to figure out is that you can't totally control the game. You're going to make a lot more great swings than shots that end up great, more great strokes than holed putts. This game is not there to give you good feedback. It's mostly frustrating. You've got to provide the good feedback to yourself."
Given his history, Mahan is perhaps leery of partnerships, and he calls himself a loner. "Absolutely," he says. "It's cost me some friends, I'm sure. Certainly long relationships with girls. It's a choice. I'm not extremely friendly. It's hard to turn my head on and off. I just find it takes all I've got to play this game. But it's where I want to be."
Asked if it reminds him of anyone else, Mahan laughs.
"Yeah, I guess it's the way Tiger is. And it's part of why he's so great. I don't think we ever thought anyone could be that good. But you think about it, and why not? There's no reason not to be able to do it consistently.
"So I just try to hammer it out every day. I've got a great team, and I want to see a lot more, understand a lot more. Because so much of golf is just a little bit -- this shot here and this shot here, the little things over four days of shots. It's the difference between the really good player who's always up there and the average player who hardly ever is and can't figure out why." And Mahan isn't just talking about his generation when he says he doesn't plan on being one of those.
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