Adam Hadwin in good shape to defend his title at Valspar Championship

PGA Tour Valspar Championship tee times https://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/valspar-championship/tee-times.html

Adam Hadwin's life changed a year ago this week when he won his first PGA Tour event at the Valspar Championship at this famous Florida resort, Innisbrook.

Besides a million dollar payday he went on to play in his first Masters, got married, bought a house, played in the Presidents Cup, just to name a few.

You'll remember he nearly won his first tourney a few weeks earlier after shooting that "59" at the old Bob Hope (Career Builders Challenge) but lost by a shot to Hudson Swafford.

This year, now ranked 44th in the world and 35th in the Fed Ex Cup he will begin play on Thursday in fine form after placing T9 at the WGC-Mexico Championship this past weekend following T6 the week before at the Genesis Open.

More importantly with his success he is now firmly established amongst his peers, knows he can beat them, and compete with them every time he tees it up. Confidence is everything in this game and armed with that, a settled life and schedule, there is no reason he won't do well this week.

He's off at 12.35pm in the group right before Tiger so will have a huge gallery. His partners Tony Finau (coming off 2 top 6's) and Charl Schwartzel are world class players.

He says he is happy with his game, so we'll see if it's going to be his week or not. It's strong field with Tiger and Rory the headliners. Fellow Canadians Mac Hughes, Nick Taylor, Ben Silverman, and Corey Connors are also in the field.

Bryan Angus