Winning The Sentry in my first start of the 2024 PGA Tour season is unreal. It’s just so unexpected. I had a really great off-season and I got a lot of good work done and felt good about the year, but you never really expect to shoot 29 under and win a tournament. It’s unbelievable and I’m still soaking it all in.

I’ve worked hard on my game and spent a lot of time in the gym, and also working on my mental game. I didn’t actually play a whole lot of golf and I didn’t practise that much. To come over to Hawaii and to play as well as I did, I’m very thankful and a little bit surprised.

Once the FedExCup play-offs were done last August, I played in two tournaments in the fall and spent more time in the gym from September through December than I’ve ever had in the past. I’ve always worked out, but last year was definitely the hardest I’ve gone in the gym. That was a big thing in my preparation for 2024.

For me, the harder I work at my fitness and the stronger and fitter I feel, then that sort of carries over to a lot of things. Also, Zach Sorensen, who is the Atlanta Braves’ mental coach, started working with me from early last year and we were able to dig in and look into a lot of different things and work out how my brain ticks, and what we can do to improve.

Another fun thing I always do every December is that some of my friends and I would play every day for a week left-handed, and we were all terrible. It was just a lot of bantering and having fun goofing off. For me to feel really great about a shot that I hit right-handed, it’s got to be something phenomenal, something like on 17 during the final round at The Sentry where I hit it really close with my five-iron for a birdie.

Playing left-handed, if I hit the fairway or if I hit a seven-iron on the green, like, yeah, that’s an awesome feeling. If you make two pars in a row while playing left-handed, that’s unbelievable. I find it helps bring back a little bit of the childlike nature of the game, and my expectations are so low it is way easier to be happy about what I’m doing.

At this stage of my career, I just enjoy competing. I’m enjoying the work that I love which I didn’t have for a while. I love the process of working to be the best player that I can be, and then working on being as good of a father and husband as I can.

When I look back now, the best thing that I’ve ever done in my life was to get sober and to go public about this. The biggest thing for me was waking up every morning and looking at myself in the mirror and knowing I’ve got nothing to hide, and I can be proud of who I am.

My PGA Tour career would have been over a while ago had I not become sober. So yeah, I’m fine with that staying with me until the day I die. I guess it was just more of the freedom of not lying to myself and lying to other people. I felt free for the first time in a long time.

I’ll try to decompress a little bit before teeing up at the Sony Open in Hawaii this week. Waialae is a golf course that I’ve played so many times and I’ve had some success over the years. When I tee off on Thursday, what I did at The Sentry doesn’t matter any more, it’s all square, and we try to do it all over again.

Fans can watch the PGA Tour and this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii on Mola TV.