What ever happened to Hunter Mahan?

[Buckeyebowman]

22 hours ago, WUTiger said:

Not just on the PGA tour. We lost our club pro this fall to a career in financial services. He started as an assistant, and over several years worked his way up to head pro.

He sent all the members an e-mail and said that he and his new bride wanted to start a family, and he felt the hours running the club would get in the way of this. He said it was a hard decision to make, but he felt it was the best for his future.

So, it's a demanding life both on the tour and club end of things.

Now that you mention it, being a club pro may be, overall, more demanding, at least of your time and sanity. You have an entire membership to keep happy, including all the egomaniacs and chronic whiners in that bunch!

1 hour ago, jbishop15 said:

I don't know about that. I don't think you make it to the PGA Tour without being maniacally competitive, and a little bit of an alpha lunatic. It's hard to get there without whole-assing it. 

Also, top 15s ain't exactly easy. 

Nope, they ain't easy. But with the money floating around today, you can make a hell of a nice living with a mess of top 15 finishes.

[skydog]

On ‎12‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 11:27 PM, Buckeyebowman said:

Nope, they ain't easy. But with the money floating around today, you can make a hell of a nice living with a mess of top 15 finishes.

I always viewed Mahan as the poster child for what Norman said about some modern pros not having that desire to win. People thought Norman's comments were asinine (and they were to some extent) but I also think there was some truth to them.

No doubt that getting to a top tour level requires an immense amount of discipline and alpha attitude...but at the same time when people achieve success and are raking in the paychecks, sometimes it can breed complacency too. I don't know, just speculating here.

If nothing else, I'm content to just blame that short, fanny pack carrying instructor of his.

[Thrash13]

Like a couple others stated, his priorities definitely changed. He once withdrew from the Canadian Open while in the lead to make the trip to see one of his kids born. The guy took some heat for it, but he has his things in the right order for sure. Then again, I'm rolling with a Swingin Pete avatar, so I'm clearly a huge Mahan fan.

There's too much talent there for Hunter to disappear forever. He's had a rough go for awhile, but he'll be back in the spotlight at some point in time. At least I hope so. He was fun to watch when he got the irons dialed in!

[Johnhw2]

I think there is one other factor involved in his drop off. A couple of years ago he stated he needed to get longer off the tee. Said there were a lot of stops on the tour where a 300 yard carry with driver was needed. As David Duval said last weekend, chasing distance if usually a curse for those who are short but have good games. Luke Donald is another case on point. Hunter lived off his ball striking it and it went way down like due to both not enough practice time as father of 3 under 5 years of age and making changes to try to regain distance. His driver is back based upon the past couple of tournaments but his irons are no where near back. His putting is very good but chipping weak as well. Surprisingly his green side bunker stats are very good, probably due to putting and some improvement in improved near hole stats out of sand.

I know a guy who was on the high school golf team with Hunter here in McKinney, Texas. He confirms Hunter is a good guy and will be back. I doubted it until he made the last two cuts and got off to a strong start today at ATT in NoCal.

Im a OSU Cowboy too and Hunter is my favorite OSU golfer. I keep a leaderboard with just OSU players on my pga tour app. For OSU fans dont forget to European Players making us cowboy proud these days. Peter Uhlein and Alex Noren.

Cowboys have had 160 or so golf all americans with AS5U number 2 on that list with about 80. Go Cowboys especially Hunter. Dont forget Charles Howell III, he is the money machine despite not winning in a long time.

[Johnhw2]

 

I assume all know Hunter is no longer with Foley and that Kuchar has John Wood, his former caddy working for him now. Hunter is with the same coach as Kuch now. Im not a Foley fan, so suspect this change is helping his game come around too.

Pardon my typo above ASU is in second place with All American golfers. Early legend programs when All American golfers were not named get short changed in this metric..such as Yale, and Houston just to name two.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Johnhw2
correction