Mahan hopes for forgive-forget attitude from PGA
Two weeks ago at the PGA Championship outside Detroit, Mahan spent much of the week meeting with PGA officials and rebuilding scorched bridges. One of the top young Americans on the horizon, not to mention a member of the victorious 2007 Presidents Cup team, Mahan struggled when the tournament began with rounds of 81 and 79 to finish 20 over, his worst week as a professional.
At the PGA's showcase event, Mahan surely felt extra eyes on him, though how much it affected him is debatable.
"I think it took a little energy away from him, is all," his caddie John Wood said.
When the magazine story hit the newsstands, Mahan knew he was in hot water and quickly contacted Azinger, whose loose lips and failed attempts at humor have landed him in a few boiling cauldrons along the way (see: Nick Faldo name-calling incident earlier this year). Heck, Azinger might pick Mahan because they are kindred spirits.
But there's a difference between tossing a sprinkle of Tabasco in the stew pot versus the whole quart bottle. Mahan believes the PGA has forgiven, and hopes they will also forget.
"Really, the way it came out written in black and white, when I saw it I was like, 'Oh,'" he said Thursday. "When I saw it in black and white I thought, 'This is a problem.' Hopefully it just goes away.
"The good thing is Paul has been outspoken before, so he kind of knows. I told him, 'Look, it's not like I don't want to play on the team. I would love to be on the team.' I let it be known that I will do everything I can to make the team."
Sign him up for the shackles, fellas.
At the PGA Championship, Mahan sought out the PGA of America's two top officials, Joe Steranka and Brian Whitcomb, in what amounted to a come-to-Jesus meeting. He groveled, capitulated, genuflected and essentially recanted. The two PGA officers elected, at least publicly, to take the high road. "It gave Brian and I the chance to educate a young man who has great golf talent and will contend in a lot of PGA Championships and hopefully make a few Ryder Cup teams and be a part of a very positive Ryder Cup experience," Steranka said in Detroit. "We expressed our disappointment, I can tell you that." Added Whitcomb: "I certainly admire Hunter's willingness to acknowledge that maybe he said some things that he wishes he could have said differently; that he reached out not only to our chief executive officer but to me as the president and also to our captain to express his dismay at a couple things he might have said differently.
"And it gave us an arena, as Joe said, to quite frankly voice a couple of feelings that we might have had towards those comments. The whole idea of this, it was to put this behind us. Hunter Mahan is a wonderful talent, just an unbelievable talent. He will, God willing, play in several Ryder Cups in the future; maybe next month."
Laudable comments, but what is the pair supposed to say publicly, that Mahan has become a professional persona non grata? Clearly, the PGA brass was rankled, which despite their assurances raises the possibility that there could be residual fallout.
Until Thursday, whether Mahan had actually been forgiven wasn't all that relevant -- there were others having better years who probably ranked ahead of him on Azinger's perceived pecking order. But after posting the fifth 62 of his young tour career, he might be forcing them to live up to their word.
Whether his open atonement to the lords of the PGA was enough of an olive branch or not, Mahan believes he has been pardoned and is starting to play like he has a true shot at securing a team berth. The coast is clear and so is his conscience, he says.
Golf is a sport of great sensitivities and some of us are reserving a bit of doubt, though. So, with seven live rounds remaining before Azinger names his four picks, here's some unsolicited advice that Mahan should heed:
Make yourself indispensable with your clubs, not indelible with your words.
