"Unfortunately, this is a tournament that I haven't done too well at in the past, but I'm hoping that changes this week."
Wednesday 11 March 2020 17:37, UK
Tyrrell Hatton admitted he was still feeling the after-effects from celebrating his win at Bay Hill as he prepares for this week's Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
A jaded Hatton revealed the full extent of his Sunday night revelry which "did not end well", following his impressive one-shot win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in just his second start of the year following keyhole surgery on his wrist.
The world No 22 has not made the cut at Sawgrass in each of his last two visits, but he feels confident that he can put in a strong performance this week and carry on the excellent form he showed both in Mexico (T6) and last week on a brutally-tough Bay Hill layout.
"I'm still feeling quite tired, to be honest," said Hatton at his pre-tournament press conference. "Sunday night's celebration, there was a lot of red wine and then unfortunately I think the finisher was the drinking the vodka and tequila out of the bottle, which never ends well. And I fell victim to that, definitely.
"Unfortunately, this is a tournament that I haven't done too well at in the past, but I'm hoping that changes this week. Obviously it was nice week last week, and I've had a few days to recover before we get going on Thursday."
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Hatton credited his improved temperament as the key asset in collecting his maiden PGA Tour title on Sunday, and he believes he has made huge strides in controlling his emotions as he recalled a "typical blow-up" at Sawgrass last March.
He added: "Last year it was kind of typical me, where I was one shot outside the cut line with five holes to go and I had a blow-up, snapped my three-wood and basically started hitting shots on the run, and I think we missed the cut by five or something like that.
"So it kind of just goes back to making sure can I kind of control myself, and that's normally the first step to me having a decent week.
Throughout the whole week at Bay Hill I managed myself pretty well, which is always one of the hardest things for me. So that was obviously something that I would like to continue, and obviously I'm human so I'm going to make mistakes along the way.
"There are probably going to be weeks where I'll have some blow-ups but hopefully that's kind of few and far between. So, hopefully I can stay cool, and I've got my dad out with me this week, so to have him there to kind of get back on point with my swing.
"Playing in the kind of conditions where you're constantly trying to flight the ball and your weight's in a different place than it normally would be, it can kind of knock your swing out. So it's good to have my dad here, and hopefully we can have another good week here."
