Redoubled Attention to
Putting Pays Big Dividends
After a long climb, Lee Hodges is nearly to the top of the mountain. The Ardmore, Ala., native began his college career at the University of Alabama-Birmingham in 2014, and after two seasons that included Conference USA Freshman of the Year and first-team All Conference USA honors, Hodges transferred down the road to perennial national powerhouse Alabama, where he played alongside thoroughbreds Davis Riley, Wilson Furr, Dru Love, and others. After four top-25 finishes in nine starts on the MacKenzie Tour (now the Forme Tour) in 2018, Hodges played his way onto the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019, where he met with mixed results in his first season. In 2020, though, Hodges went on a tear: registering a T3 finish in Panama and a T11 at the LECOM Suncoast Classic before the three-month COVID shutdown — then picking back up with top-20 finishes in seven of his next eight starts, including a win at the WinCo Foods Portland Open that earned him a spot in the U.S. Open. In 2021, he’s missed just three cuts in 16 events and cruised to a No. 10 spot in the Korn Ferry Tour’s The 25 rankings, securing his first PGA Tour card in fairly drama-free fashion. Now, he’s eyeing the PGA Tour’s fall campaign with a newly rounded game (he improved his putting average from 138th in 2019 to 8th in 2020-21) and confidence to spare.
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LYING FOUR: So, in the past two years, you’ve gone from full status on the Korn Ferry Tour…to a pretty hot start to 2020…to COVID and a three-month shutdown…come back, play some really consistent golf…get married…earn your PGA Tour card. This has to have been the weirdest two years of your life.
LEE HODGES: Yeah, it’s been wild. It’s been a lot of ups and downs, ebbs and flows. But golf’s been great. I’ve played some really nice golf over the past couple of years, and the personal life has been even better, obviously — getting married to a great girl. And she helps me all the time out here. It’s definitely been a weird two years, but it’s been a rewarding two years.
LYING FOUR: Did you get engaged during this superseason?
LEE HODGES: No, it would’ve been just before. We got married in November of ’19. So, right before.
LYING FOUR: Well, she had some lead time then. She knew what she was getting into.
LEE HODGES: Oh yeah. She knows all about it. We dated for seven or eight years before we got married, so she was well aware of what she was signing up for. And she’s great about it. She understands that when golf’s over, golf’s over — and we don’t talk about it, unless she can tell that I want to talk about it. She’s a great person to talk to when I just want to get away from the game.
LYING FOUR: Let me ask you about this two-year superseason that you got saddled with. In hindsight, do you think it was easier or harder to earn a card in a two-year season? It’s a bigger sample size, so it probably weeds out some guys who got hot for a couple of weeks and then cooled off.
LEE HODGES: Yeah. I think it’s been good. This will be one of, if not the strongest 25 that ever come out of the Korn Ferry, just because it’s two years — and over two years, the best of the best are gonna rise to the top. Every single person who’s in the 25 this year will have absolutely earned it, and not just had a hot three-week or four-week stretch, which can sometimes happen out here. Everybody that you see at the top is a really good player.
LYING FOUR: What do you think has been the difference for you over the past two years, versus the 2019 season? When you put those two seasons up against one another — obviously one of those seasons is a lot longer — but the missed cuts are almost nowhere to be found for the past two years.
LEE HODGES: Just being more confident. Honestly, your first year out is really hard. I talked to a lot of guys, and they told me that it was gonna be hard. You don’t really know how to go about it. You don’t know what to do week to week, and you change your routine more than I do now. I was always trying to find something instead of just sticking with what I do. Now I do the same thing every week: I have the same routine that I go through every single week, every single day. Just being more comfortable out here and knowing what I need to do to perform my best has been huge.
LYING FOUR: It’s funny you say that, because when I talk to guys like you who have done really well on the Korn Ferry Tour, one of the things I’m always trying to figure out is what sets apart guys like you from guys on Tour who are really, really good players and just can’t seem to break through. What is it who makes a guy like you so consistent, versus a guy who has a little more trouble getting it going so consistently? When you talk about doing the same things every week, what does that mean? Like, specifically — what sorts of things were you going back and forth on in 2019, but have been more consistent about in 2020 and 2021?
LEE HODGES: I’ve got more of a team in place now. My swing coach has been the same since I was 11, I think — so I’ve never really struggled or had anything going on in that regard. But I didn’t have a short-game guy, and now I work with Marcus Potter on my putting. And he’s been great. Putting was probably the thing that held me back in my junior and amateur days. I putted decent my — [pause] no, I wouldn’t say decent, compared to now — but I thought I putted decent my first year. But I really didn’t, because I didn’t have anybody that I was working with. I just changed from week to week. If I didn’t putt well, I just changed what I was doing and tried to figure out a new thought or feel or something like that. And it’s hard to do that. You can catch lightning in a bottle, but it’s hard to do that from week to week. So I work with Marcus now, and he’s been great about reminding me that even if you putt bad, you don’t need to change anything; maybe you just didn’t see the reads that well that week, or maybe your speed was off that week. I do the same drills every single day; when I get to the course, I start with the exact same weeks. I’ve been doing that for going on 18 months now. It’s amazing how consistent that’s kept me on the greens, because I’ve always been a pretty good ball-striker, but putting has always kinda let me down in my junior days, and even in college. Now, it’s kinda become a strength, which is nice.
LYING FOUR: It’s interesting to hear you say that, because I talked to Chad Ramey a few months ago — another guy who has been ridiculously consistent this year —
LEE HODGES: Yes.
LYING FOUR: — and I asked him what made him so much more consistent in 2020 versus earlier in his career, and he also said short game. He said he spends about 80 percent of his time now on short game, and that was what made all the difference for him.
LEE HODGES: It’s amazing. I feel like ball-striking is what gets you out here, but short game is what keeps you out here.
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LYING FOUR: Tell me about growing up in Ardmore. Did you grow up on the Alabama side or the Tennessee side?
LEE HODGES: Alabama side. My mom and dad both live on the Alabama side.
LYING FOUR: How’d you get into golf as a kid?
LEE HODGES: My dad played golf. My mom and dad lived on a golf course, and we lived on 11 green. My dad would take me out behind the house late at night, when nobody was out there, and I’d chip balls and putt around with him. I loved it. It was really fun. We kept it kinda light, until I became older, and then it became pretty serious. I played a lot of sports growing up — baseball, basketball, played football for a couple of years. I actually loved baseball; I was just a really small kid. So going into the sixth or seventh grade at my school was when you could try out for middle school sports, and my dad took me to the baseball field. I think he knew I should be playing golf, but I liked baseball more because all my friends were playing. He threw me a couple of pitches, and I could barely get it to the outfield, because I was so small. So I realized I should probably play golf. It was a pretty good choice.
LYING FOUR: So, growing up, were you an Alabama fan?
LEE HODGES: Oh yeah, a huge Alabama fan. My dad’s had season tickets since I was really young. So there’s not many big-time Alabama games in Tuscaloosa that I haven’t been at. It was awesome, growing up with that. And obviously getting a chance to go there was surreal. I still think about it sometimes. Definitely one the coolest things I’ve ever done is putting on that crimson “A.” I loved every second of it.
LYING FOUR: What was that like, transferring to Bama? You’d played really well at UAB, so it’s not like you had anything to prove — but at the same time, anytime you transfer, there’s a little bit of starting over to it. What was that like?
LEE HODGES: It was hard. I think it was hard on my parents, more than anything. I played for Coach [Alan] Murray at UAB, and Coach Murray is one of the greatest coaches I’ll ever have, at anything — whether it’s swing coach or just a coach like he was. He was unbelievable. I owe a lot of my success to that man. I felt like he saw some potential in me, and when I got to UAB, he really knew what he was doing and brought out a pretty good player in me. I owe a lot to him. But then he got a great opportunity at Washington to better himself and his family, and we were really happy for him. At the same time, though, I didn’t know whether I wanted to play for anybody else there. So I kind of looked around, and it just so happened that I’d played well enough that Coach [Jay] Seawell took some interest in me. There were definitely some unknowns, though: I was definitely guaranteed to play at UAB, but going to a school like Alabama, you’re not guaranteed to play. I think that was kind of hard on my mom and dad, just thinking, “What if he goes there but doesn’t get to play?” But thankfully, I played in every single tournament that I was at Alabama for. It was an unbelievable two years. I wish I could’ve been there for four. But looking back on it, I needed my UAB days more than I thought I did. They were really monumental for my growth as a player.
LYING FOUR: One of the things that I think is really interesting about your career is that, every two years or so, you’ve moved up. You spent two years at UAB, then two years at Alabama; you did one season on the MacKenzie Tour, and — I know it’s been three years on the Korn Ferry Tour, but two seasons. So now, looking ahead to the PGA Tour, what does goal-setting look like when you’re at the last mountain? There’s not another tour out there to climb up to.
LEE HODGES: That’s a good point. I don’t know that I’ve really sat down and thought about that yet. I just want to get better every day. I think this break has been good, because I would’ve been on the PGA Tour last year [in fall 2020], and I’m not sure I would’ve handled that as well as I will now. When you think about being on the PGA Tour, that’s a big mountain to climb. But I definitely know I’m ready to be on the PGA Tour now. Hopefully there’s not a huge learning curve; I think I’ve gone through that on the Korn Ferry and kind of gotten that out of the way. I’m just looking forward to getting out there and competing against the best. I think that’s what anybody wants in any field — to get out and see the best.
LYING FOUR: Tell me about getting into the U.S. Open. That looked like it was a whirlwind.
LEE HODGES: Yeah, that was wild. I didn’t even think about it really when I won in Portland. I was really happy that I won, obviously — but that’s really all I was focused on: winning. Then they told me that I was in the U.S. Open, and I didn’t really even think about it until a couple of days later — like, “Man, I’m in the U.S. Open.” Winged Foot was super-fun, but it was definitely a really, really big learning experience about how I need to handle myself. I spent the first two and a half days just looking around at everybody and looking at everything instead of handling my business — which is probably why I shot 12-over or whatever I shot. It is what it is. It was definitely a learning experience. Like I’ve told everybody, I’m looking forward to the next one more than the last one.
LYING FOUR: Are you tired? I would be tired after everything that’s happened to you over the past two or three years.
LEE HODGES: Not really. I mean, I definitely have days where it’s more fun to practice and grind than it is on other days, but I get to play golf for a living. I could sit at a desk every day, but that would not be great for me. For my personality, I need to be up and moving. On the days when you get tired or you just really don’t want to do it, I feel like you’ve got to look at it that way.
LYING FOUR: What are you looking forward to the most about playing on the PGA Tour?
LEE HODGES: I have a lot of guys that I’ve grown up playing with who are out there, and buddies that I made on the Korn Ferry — and seeing those guys again. And playing against the best. I mean, I feel like anybody who does anything wants to see how they compare to what people say is the best in their field. I’m really looking forward to seeing how my game stacks up and seeing whether everything I’ve been doing for the last 20 years is working.
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All photos: credit University of Alabama Athletics
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