The Loop
Players 2020: Tyrrell Hatton is 'devastated' he can't play the new Call of Duty this week
Sam Greenwood
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Over the last seven months, only a handful of players have had a more impressive run of form than England's Tyrrell Hatton. In his last eight worldwide starts, he's finished T-18 or better seven times, including a pair of wins at the Turkish Airlines Open and last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational, his first PGA Tour victory.
The most shocking part is that in the middle of this stretch, Hatton missed two and a half months following wrist surgery. At the 2017 Masters, the Englishman slipped on pine straw during the par 3 tournament, which was later canceled due to storms. For the better part of two years, he managed to play through the pain with the help of multiple steroid injections. But this past November, he and his team decided it was time to fix the issue.
Judging by his recent results (Hatton tied for sixth at the WGC-Mexico before Bay Hill), his recovery went extremely well. After two rounds at the API, he revealed his rehab secret: red wine and Xbox. Unfortunately, he was not pressed further about what Xbox game he was grinding away on.
As someone who grew up in a legendary era for video games (early 2000s), I had to find out what game was occupying his time. I suspected FIFA based off one of his old Instagram posts.
Turns out, Hatton is a huge "Call of Duty" fan. Apparently, the newest edition of "COD" was just released, "Call of Duty: Warzone." It's the 17th installment of the series, which debuted in 2003. Early reviews of the game have already claimed it could surpass "Fortnite" in popularity. That seems like a very big deal, so I'm told.
Unfortunately for Hatton, he has work this week. He's not taking it well.
"I'm actually devastated that the new War Zone game's come out," he said. "It was released yesterday, and I'm not going to get to play it for another few weeks. So that's cut me deep."
Hatton is in the field at next week's Valspar Championship, and because he's the No. 22 ranked player in the world, he'll also be playing the following week at the WGC-Match Play. Two weeks later is the Masters, where he'll be making his fourth appearance.
So Hatton he won't be trading in a golf club for an Xbox controller for at least a month. That's a brutal break for a guy who could desperately use a week of locking himself in the basement, shutting off all the lights and pwning noobs, only stopping for bathroom breaks and food.