Justin Hastings has a lot of joy and pressure in his life right now. In January, the Cayman Islands native won the Latin America Amateur Championship to ensure invites into this year’s Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship. The win also earned him starts in this week’s Mexico Open in Vallarta, where he enters Sunday tied for ninth after a third-round 65 in only his second-ever PGA Tour start, and the Puerto Rico Open in early March.
All great stuff, but he’s also trying to finish his senior year at San Diego State and earn a general business degree. Hastings, 21, already has missed two tests this week and has those, along with a couple of other exams, to make up when he’s home next week for a few days. Then it’s back on the road for Puerto Rico, followed by a special first trip to Augusta National. Though he’s still on the Aztecs golf team—and owns the top career scoring average (dating back to 1993-94) of 71.48—his college career also is essentially on hold because of the outside commitments created by the LAAC title.
“It’s going to be a tough one school-wise the last couple months, but obviously do my best,” Hastings said. “At three and a half years, let’s complete [the degree], obviously. … “It’s obviously been more busy, a lot of time on the road, but I think the best part of practice is playing in tournaments anyway. You learn a lot about yourself under the pressure because that’s where the real things come out, right?”
A year ago, in his first-ever tour start in the Puerto Rico Open, Hastings missed a five-foot putt that would have sent him to the weekend. Calling the preparation for that putt the “most nervous” he’d been in his life, Hastings took time to reflect on how he handled it.
“I feel like I’m very passionate and emotional sometimes, and I feel like I let that get the better of me down the stretch in Puerto Rico,” he said. “I realize I was only playing to make the cut, but it meant the world to me, and I felt like I got a little bit too jacked up. … So I think this week I focused on being really even keel and kind of keeping the emotions and the heart rate down low and I think it’s helped me under pressure.”
This week, Hastings looked far more comfortable in shooting 69-67 to easily make the weekend, and then he made three birdies on each side, with no bogeys, in shooting 65 on the par-71 Vidanta Vallarta course.
At 12 under through 54 holes, Hastings is three shots out of fourth place and eight back of leader Aldrich Potgieter, who at 20 years old is one year his junior.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
