Player Blog: Scott Hend

In this week’s Player Blog presented by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Scott Hend discusses his passion for cars, red wine and Scotland’s cold and windy challenges.

If I had to choose between red wine or owning a Ferrari that would be tough. If you said I could only drink white wine and not red, then I'd take the Ferrari. I don't mind having a white wine because they don't give me hangovers. A couple of bottles of red and I've more than likely got a bad head in the morning.

I was in a bit of a funk with my golf a couple of years ago. I'd played horrendously around Monza and my caddie goes: "Mate, let's go down to Ferrari." So we drove down to Maranello and went through the museum, which was unbelievable. Probably the best 15 Euros I've ever spent in Europe.

And then I went and paid $500, which I know a lot of people can't afford to pay but it was a once in a lifetime thing, and drove a Ferrari around the streets and up into the mountains. It was only 45 minutes but I couldn't get over how awesome it was.

It was just an amazing experience. I took my kids and wife a few years later and went back to the museum. It was a great day and they loved it too. If I wasn't playing golf in Italy with the Tour, I wouldn't be able to do that sort of thing.

I think it paid off too because the following week I finished fourth so it must have done something for my game!

I love cars. I’m 47 years of age, so you can image the sort of cars I grew up around. My Dad had a V8 Holden Monaro and a V8 station wagon. That's what really got me into cars. I was always around cars, especially loud muscle cars.

My wife's father used to drive Rally cars, and she loves cars as well. I'd love to buy a Ferrari but the maintenance is too expensive.

I've got a '68 Chevelle and a '69 Camaro. The muscle cars are my sort of car and my vibe. The kids love the cars too. I hope when they get to an age when they can buy a car that they'll go to a classic muscle car garage. I think those cars aren't that popular anymore and are fading away. But I really enjoy that part of automotive stuff.

I hope people enjoy my Twitter channel because I’m trying to show the other side to golfers’ lives, away from the course. I'm trying to get the 'Headless with Hendy’ thing going. It's to try and show a different side to the golfers out there and I think the boys enjoy it. It's simply one question: What gets you headless? It's nice to showcase the different personalities on Tour.

I was asked by the Australian Olympic Committee back in 2016 to start a Twitter account. I'd never used Twitter before and I'd never have thought about doing it. I thought, if I'm going to start a channel then what's the point in having a Twitter account in your name if someone else is going to run it? For people to get a real grip of what's going on, whether they like it or not, I say what I want to say and that's all there is to it.

There's a button there that says unfollow. If you don't like my tweets then just hit that unfollow button.

I try not to get political on there because people who follow us as golf professionals don't want to hear that sort of thing. Occasionally we all get a little wound up, but I try to keep my channels more golf orientated and put some lifestyle stuff and what I get up to on there.

It's funny because I was taking the Mick out of Maverick Antcliff for not entering this week, then it turns out I forgot too! Wade Ormsby was sitting at dinner on Friday night at the BMW PGA Championship and he asked who was going to caddie for me as Tony, my caddie, was traveling home to Australia. Wade suggested I use Maverick's caddie because he forgot to enter.

I said: "How did he forget to enter?" So I asked Wade to check the list and it turned out I wasn't on there. Straight away I couldn’t believe I’d done that, especially after giving Maverick stick for forgetting!

I messaged one of the Player Relations staff and he said he'd look into it. The next day I shot one over which wasn't good, but they told me if I finish in the top ten this week you'll get one of the spots anyways.

I went out Sunday thinking if I shot six under par I might have a chance. I walk off the 17th green at Wentworth and I was playing with Andrew Johnston. I said: "Beef, I need to run top ten this week because I forgot to enter next week." And he's looking at me thinking, how on earth did you manage to forget?

I birdied the last and at the time it put me into a tie for seventh. I thought we might hang on but it was going to be tight. All of a sudden a few guys made birdie down the stretch but I somehow managed to finish in a tie for tenth.

Perfect, we're in the field.

But then I arrived in Scotland yesterday and thought I'm not sure if I really want to be here because it's so cold! If I think back to Renaissance a couple of weeks ago - my hands were freezing and I couldn't feel my toes and I said to myself that I don't think I want to play golf in anything under 20 degrees anymore. But here I am in Scotland about to do it all again!

It can be tough to get excited about your round when it's so cold and wet, but you have to remember how lucky we are to be playing this sport for a living. You've got to want to be there and talk yourself into it sometimes. My philosophy is, if I was playing like an amateur is for fun, I wouldn't even be on that tee box if it was cold and rainy. Once you get going and start concentrating, you almost zone out the weather. You just have to manage it well.

Without fans it has been tough. You get a lot of adrenaline from the fans and it's an amazing feeling when you're in the mix on a Sunday. Up here in Scotland they come out in their droves so it's a shame.

The incentive this year is World Ranking Points. There are still trophy cabinets you want to fill up and there's a lot of pride on the line. This is what we work for all the time and if people say they haven't got an incentive then they're not working towards an end goal, which could be a bad thing.

I know I've worked hard to get in the position I am today, but I'm very lucky that I'm able to go out and try and make some money. There are a lot of people losing their jobs at the minute and haven't got that opportunity. You've really got to look at the bigger picture. We're really fortunate as golfers to be in the position we're in.