Hunter Mahan - February 28, 2012

• By Morning Drive Team
• Feb 28, 2012 8:41 AM ET

Last week, Hunter Mahan defeated Rory McIlroy in the Championship Match to win the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona for his 4th career PGA TOUR win and his 2nd career WGC win. When he found out about the draw for the Match Play, he did not look at his entire bracket and instead only looked as far as his first round match with Zach Johnson and who his possible second match opponent would be. Overall, it was one of the best ball-striking weeks of his entire career and he was very pleased to see how balanced his game was all week.

When he has been working with Sean Foley, they have worked on many of the same things over their 3 years together including being able to really compress the ball at impact and making his backswing steeper. Those goals have not changed in 2012 and he is simply working to make his game more consistent.

He started the PING Nome mallet putter on Monday last week. He was not sure how it would turn out but he felt very comfortable all week long and it was great to finally have more confidence over his putts.

With all of the attention being paid to the McIlroy/Westwood semifinal, he felt that his match with Mark Wilson was the undercard of the morning so to speak and Hunter felt that no matter who won the semifinal, they would be more motivated than Rory and Lee in part because of the comparable lack of attention.

He is building a new house and as a big basketball fan, he has decided to build an underground basketball court. As a result, he and his friends will be able to play basketball or other sports at any time of the year no matter what the weather might be outside. The only things he really wanted for the new house were a big garage, a big gym, and a golf simulator.

In relation to his 2012 goals, nothing has changed as far as his goals for the year but the fact that he has won such a big event shows him that he can play against the best and win against the best which will give him more confidence in the Majors as well as any event where he tees it up.