By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

He won’t be mistaken for The Incredible Hulk, but Adam Hadwin has used the longest break of his professional golf career to try and add a little muscle.

After a highly successful 2023 season that ended in early October with a runner-up finish at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas, Hadwin could have rested on his laurels.

And he’s certainly enjoyed plenty of down time with his wife Jessica and their soon to be four-year-old daughter Maddox. But Hadwin has also been hitting the gym harder than he ever has.

He averaged 295.7 yards off the tee this past season which ranked him 140th among his PGA TOUR peers. One of his big goals during the off-season is to try and get stronger and squeeze a few more yards out of his driver.

“I have been trying to do a few more things off the golf course this season to help get me ready for January,” Hadwin said in an interview with British Columbia Golf. “I definitely have been trying to get bigger, stronger, faster. The game has kind of gone that way and the stats would tell you the further you can hit it, the better.”

Some days are easier than others, but Hadwin seems pleased with the work he has done in the off-season. “At age 36, I’ll be honest, it is not the easiest thing to do anymore,” he said.

“But in order to keep up with all the younger kids and give myself a better chance at some of the bigger tournaments that we play on bigger golf courses— major championships, Quail Hollow, just to name a quick few — it was something I needed to look seriously into.

“I think I have done some good things. The reps are not quite complete, but I am happy with some of the progress I have made so far and hopefully that leads to being a little bit faster and hitting it a little bit further come January.”

Hadwin enjoyed a terrific 2023. In addition to that second-place result in Las Vegas, he had two other runner-up finishes. Hadwin lost in a three-way playoff to Rickie Fowler at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit and he and fellow Abbotsford product Nick Taylor were second at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans team event.

Hadwin had three other top 10s, finished inside the top 25 in 10 of his 28 starts, made $4.714 million and was 45th on the FedEx Cup points list, meaning he has qualified to play in all of the 2024 big-money Signature events. “I think there was a lot of good,” Hadwin said of his 2023 season.

“I think if you had told me I’d finish where I did at the beginning of the year I would have been very happy. I felt like I was playing enough good golf. I was disappointed not to play a little bit better towards the end of the season and get into the top 30 this year. I thought I had given myself a proper chance of doing that and obviously fell a little bit short, but I did a lot of good things.

“I improved greatly over the previous season. I felt like I got back to my norm, I felt like I was able to enjoy myself a little bit more on the golf course and execute a little bit better. I had a couple of close calls and I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to cross the finish line in one of them.”

That second PGA TOUR win has been elusive for Hadwin, who broke into the winner’s circle at the 2017 Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Fla. He does not need to be reminded that was nearly seven years ago. “That is No. 1 on the list,” Hadwin said of winning again.

“I think I am doing a lot of good things. If I can improve a little bit here and there it can make a big difference. The margin for error now is so thin. The difference of finishing in the top five and winning versus finishing 25th or 30th is one bad decision here or there during a tournament. So I’m putting the head down and will keep doing what I am doing and I think some good things will follow.”

Hadwin will hit the ground running in 2024. He’ll open the season at The Sentry tourney at Kapalua in Maui and will also play the Sony Open in Hawaii, The American Express in La Quinta, Calif, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the WM Phoenix Open and the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles. The only West Coast event he won’t play is the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

FINAL EXAM: Hadwin played a round of golf in Scottsdale last week with fellow British Columbian Jared du Toit, who is playing in this week’s (Dec. 14-17) final stage of the Korn Ferry/PGA TOUR qualifying school in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. “He has been grinding for a number of years,” Hadwin said of du Toit, a Kimberley native. “I know getting through second stage is a weight off his shoulders.”

Du Toit and Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald both have spots in this week’s Q-school finals, where the top five finishers and ties will earn PGA TOUR status for 2024. The top 40 players and ties after that will earn guaranteed starts on the 2024 Korn Ferry tour. “They are both capable of finishing in the top five and getting super status for next year,” Hadwin said. “That can be life-changing when you have been chasing it for that long. It is a big opportunity for both of them. I know they want to play well. . .I will certainly be cheering them on.”

TEAM GOLF: Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor and partner Ruoning Yin of China finished eighth at the Grant Thornton Invitational in Florida. They completed the 54-hole event featuring 16 teams of PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour players at 21-under par, five shots behind the winning duo of Lydia Ko and Jason Day. Taylor and Yin split $170,000. The all-Canadian team of Brooke Henderson and Corey Conners were second at 25-under and split $560,000.

MAKING THE GRADE: Maddie Szeryk, the 2017 B.C. Women’s Amateur champion, was one of three Canadians to earn LPGA Tour status for 2024 at Q-school last week. Szeryk, a Texas native who has dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship, tied for 38th along with Hamilton’s Alena Sharp. Savannah Grewal, a recent Clemson University graduate from Mississauga, Ont., tied for 10th. The top 45 and ties earned LPGA status.