I spoke by phone with six-time PGA Tour winner Hunter Mahan as he was honing his swing at home and getting ready to head to Washington this weekend for the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.

We discussed the season’s second major, his play this season, his affinity for a good game on T.V. with corresponding fan interaction Twitter, his methods, and a new campaign that has him linked up with Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Check out our conversation below.

Ben Alberstadt: Looking at your Twitter, I saw you were pretty engrossed in the basketball game last night…

Hunter Mahan: Twitter is phenomenal at the big sporting events. I just love the combative nature of fans. I love to hear what they have to say. It’s always fun.

B.A. It’s a different way to interact with the fan base, for sure. Are you pro-Cavs or pro-good game?

H.M. Mostly pro-good game. I wanted to see a great Finals. I thought we were going to get a seven-gamer with Kyrie [Irving] and then Kyrie goes down and I thought it’d be a four- or five-gamer.

Lebron is amazing. Not only is he a great player, but he gets his team to believe that they have every chance to win. They’re playing hard for him, it feels like. He’s playing hard for the city, and I feel like the players are playing hard for him to get this championship.

B.A. Yeah. Watching [Matthew] Dellavedova step up…a guy who seems like he should be fourth in line to play his position, and he shuts down [Steph] Curry. Pretty impressive stuff.

H.M. That’s why you gotta love sports, man.

B.A. Something golf related: 14 of 15 cuts, tied for ninth at the Masters….you’ve been off for a couple of weeks here. How are you feeling about things?

H.M. I feel like it’s a good time for me to take a couple of weeks off…kind of refresh. When you play on the Tour, it’s easy to…kind of lose yourself a little bit and forget what you’re trying to do.

It’s a good time to get back to my mechanics and figure out what I need to do start playing a little better. Nothing too far away. I’m excited about the rest of the year and this coming U.S. Open.

Just have to keep working at it. Most of it has to do with trust and keeping good confidence in my game right now.

B.A. I’m always interested to see how players prepare. I think you played right up until the Masters…you take a couple of weeks off here. What has the preparation for Chambers Bay been like for you?

H.M. Chambers Bay is a place I haven’t played before. I’m hoping to leave on Saturday. Play Saturday afternoon and Sunday so I can get a sense of the golf course and how it’s going to play without fans and without too many players on the golf course…spend some time on the greens…figure out the good places to hit it, the bad places to hit it, the easy up-and-downs, the tough up-and-downs, what kind of rough is there.

Usually around the greens, you’re going to see a lot of the same shots over and over again. It’s just figuring out the details of Chambers Bay…we should be able to do it in two good days of practice.

B.A. It sounds like you’ve spent the past couple of weeks getting your swing dialed in and not thinking as much about the course and the specific challenge and are now going to turn your attention to that?

H.M. This week I’m going to work on my game technically…work on my swing. I do quite a bit of video stuff. I’m a visual learner…I need to see it. [I want to] go into next week thinking about the golf course, knowing where my swing is at. Knowing where my putting and short game are at. Seeing it in my head and then just trusting it from there.

B.A. What is the process of tweaking and refining the swing at your level?

H.M. For me, it’s about precision and details. Setup and alignment. Where’s my club face aimed? Where’s my setup? Is my setup beneficial to my swing and the shot I want to hit? It goes all the way from the driver down to the putter about alignment and good setup.

Sometimes I get too into the swing and plane and where the club face is and setup was the culprit the whole time. It’s getting back to basics and details…good rhythm…trust and patience from there.

Like I said, I’m a visual learner. I want to be able to see the golf swing in my head…see the ball fly.

B.A. On course, how sort of technical versus feel-based are you as a golfer?

H.M. Historically, I’ve been more technical. I’m trying to incorporate more visual stuff…really seeing the shot I want to hit…seeing where I want the ball to go and then letting that transfer to my golf swing. Sometimes I get too technical on the golf course, and I’m worrying about the swing I want to make. I need to focus on seeing the swing I want to make and seeing the shot I want to hit and from there, just trusting it. Trusting myself, trusting my abilities, and trusting the work that I’ve put in.

B.A. Yeah. I always doubted that top-tier players are out there, stepping up to a critical shot and thinking about, you know, three swing thoughts or something…

H.M. Yeah. I think it’s different for everyone….It’s always fun watching someone who’s really exceptional at something…you know, Phil has a great short game, and when Tiger was playing at his best, you could almost see what they were doing, see the intensity on their face…it’s all visual: seeing the shot they were going to hit.

B.A. Coming up here at Chambers Bay…are different things going to be key than traditionally are at U.S. Open venues?

H.M. Like any U.S. Open, par is going to be a good score. It’s going to be long. Driving’s going to be key. So, guys who have a combo of hitting it far off the tee and hitting fairways are going to have an advantage over guys hitting 3-woods or long irons to keep the ball in play.

But it’s going to come down to the mental strength of a player and making those 15-footers and in. Making those eight or 10-footers for par is key. Those are really the momentum savers. Over four days of golf, it’s really those one or two shots right then and there that spur a guy on to victory.

B.A. Yeah. At the U.S. Open, I always think about those six-footers and how deflating it must be to miss and uplifting to make, which is contrary to most events where it’s like the 15-footer for birdie is firing a guy up.

H.M. For sure. It’s going to be a challenge for every player. When you come to a golf course you don’t really know, it’s hard to figure out what a good score is. Sometimes you set a goal in your head…but sometimes that doesn’t really matter. At a U.S. Open, things can change so quickly.

B.A. Absolutely. I’ll let you off the hook with one last question: Tell me about your partnership with Chase Sapphire Preferred. What are you doing and how did it come about?

H.M. Well, Chase Sapphire Preferred is the official credit card of the PGA of America and the PGA Championship and they have a really fun campaign. It’s kind of a social media campaign called “What Drives You?” It goes through July 10.

It’s basically for fans to submit photos with a caption of what drives them to play golf and why they love to play golf. With the picture and caption, they can use the hashtag #ChaseSapphirePGA and #Sweepstakes. [The winners] get a trip to the PGA Championship, an inside-the-ropes experience with me and a one-on-one with me at the PGA. (More information here).

It’s a neat campaign celebrating golf and fans who enjoy golf.