It was only a few weeks ago that Adam Hadwin played in front of 20 or 30 people at best, in total golf obscurity.
That all changed on Friday, when he was one of only three Canadians to make the cut for the weekend. Saturday, instead of perhaps 20 or 30 spectators on a good day, thousands watched him in the pouring rain, and when his name was announced on the first tee, a cheer went up that gave him shivers.
"That cheer when they announced my name was big," said the 22-year-old from Abbotsford, B.C. playing in his first PGA Tour event and his first Canadian Open.
"I've never had so many people following me before. And to hit three really good shots on nine and make a 25-footer for eagle, it sent shivers down my back. It's unexplainable. Hopefully I'll be able to have that a lot more the next few years."
Hadwin won his way into the weekend rounds by shooting 68 in the first round and 66 in the second. On Saturday, he shot 70, and couldn't understand why anybody would want to talk to him. Still, he's tied with Jon Mills of Oshawa, Ont., at 204, nine strokes back of the leader, Dean Wilson, as the low Canadians.
Veteran Stephen Ames of Calgary, obviously not relishing the rain, finished with 73, and is two under par overall at 208.
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While Hadwin was working for hours on his game, sometimes in thundering rain, back in Abbotsford, little work was getting done at all. Hadwin said after he finished on Friday, he had 59 messages in his email inbox. Not all of them got answered.
On Friday night, he spent 20 to 25 minutes on the phone with his father, Gerry, a golf pro in British Columbia, who told him he didn't get any work done at all. He spent the day at his computer, refreshing the Open results again and again, whenever his son wasn't featured on television.
"I think they're having more fun than I am," Hadwin said. "I hope they're enjoying it as much as I am because this is as much theirs as it is mine."
Hadwin admitted on Friday, nerves sometimes made his knees shake, but on Saturday, he was focused and calmer than he expected. "I think I just kind of got into a groove and I was seeing shots," he said. "I had good lines all day. I just wasn't able to hit the shots when I needed to at times and maybe a few of the putts at times as well. But I really actually felt really confident out there today."
His first good tee shot built his confidence. He said he tried to play aggressively, sometimes too aggressively on a couple of shots. "I really felt like I could have played well and maybe pushed it to double digits today," he said.
Now the sky seems the limit. Noticing that Pettersson shot a 60 on the undulating course (before the rain hit), Hadwin says he can see that it's possible.
"I don't see why I can't shoot a 60 out there, either," Hadwin said. "I'm hitting it well, just a few more putts go in and it could be lights out."
Hadwin and Ames had the worst of it Saturday, as rains pelted the course midway through the afternoon, let up a little, then pounded onto their shoulders as Hadwin came to the final hole.
The rain obviously put Ames off his game. He shot a 73, and said: "I don't think anybody wanted to play in the rain like we did this afternoon,"
He noted that he slid into this event after a month off and he's busy making changes to his swing with the help of tutor Sean Foley. He hasn't seen Foley in a month.
"I'm just trying to get it back to where I can continue playing and work from then on to other events," he said.
Mills said he was a little surprised to see a 60 on a course he's played many times as a junior. The setup of the course is tough, he said, with its long rough, and the tough greens with their inclines and tricky wells and bumps.
"It's tough to make a lot of putts, really," he said. "To go out there and shoot 10 under par, you gotta hit the ball well and you gotta make a lot of puts and obviously he did it."
Mills was also flying high as well, especially on the front nine, as his confidence boomed with five birdies.
"I mean right off the start, I was making all these putts and it was real nice," he said.
Mills skipped the Nationwide Tour this week - and points he could have earned on it - to compete in the Open after missing it for a couple of years. He's in 26th spot, but he needs to be in the top 25 to get a card to play the PGA Tour. But it proved worth it.
"I looked at it as wanting to play my Canadian Open," he said. "But also using it as kind of a motivation to get out here and play with these guys and kind of get my motivation back to want to be back out here next year."
He said he'll use this week as a building block for the rest of his season on the Nationwide Tour. He finished his third round at about noon, just as rain began to threaten. Dry and happy, Mills planned to catch a movie in the afternoon with his caddy.
As for Hadwin, who has his own website and a blog that hasn't been updated since April, he said if he were to update it now, it would have a series of smiley faces on it.