It’s been 22 years since Todd Hamilton won the Open Championship at Royal Troon to become the 2004 Champion Golfer of the Year, but the 60-year-old still remembers every detail of his week in Scotland.
On this week’s episode of Subpar, Hamilton — who says he no longer plays much golf at his home in Norman, Okla., and instead spends his time helping his high school golf team — was reminisced by hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz about the surefire success of his professional career.
Hamilton said he was also surprised by the quality of his game at Royal Troon, and gave a lot of credit to his Sonartec hybrid, a club he used expertly all week, even in short shots around the green. On the final hole of a four-hole play-off against Ernie Els, Hamilton stroked his hybrid to three feet, making a spectacular up-and-down putt – and in the end, victory.
“I didn’t use that shot, growing up as a kid,” Hamilton said. “I probably started using it in early 2004. I wasn’t a big fan of 3-woods, and that Sonartec you just referred to was actually my 3-wood. It was a 17-degree club that one of the manufacturers bent down to 14 degrees, so I used that as my 3-wood.
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“Technically it was a hybrid, but it wasn’t a hybrid in the way you’d think it’s used these days,” he continued. “Also, I didn’t start using that shot until earlier this year, and it’s not really a shot that works here in the States because the grass is grassy and green, but the ground out there, as you know, Colt, the ground is very hard, the grass is cut very hard.
Hamilton said he practiced bump-and-run with Sonartec every day at Royal Troon that week.
“It was the picture I was counting on the most,” he said. “I don’t know how many times I used it during the week. I would guess about 12 to 14 times that I used it as a chip-slash-putt, and I think the only time I didn’t go up and back with it, and that was because I missed about a 5- or 6-foot putt, and that was in the last round on the 10th hole, which was obviously the 10th hole.
“He used the club a lot,” Hamilton continued. “But, at least a little, it was a shot, where the greens, really helped me achieve what I went there to achieve, and that was to win the Open Championship.
For more from Hamilton, including some swing thinking that helped him at Royal Troon in 2004, check out the full episode of Subpar below.
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