Charley Hoffman won’t lie to you. He wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs that Sunday night two weeks ago as he drove the 2-1/2 hours from Augusta, Georgia, to Hilton Head, South Carolina. And who could blame him?

Hoffman had just squandered a chance to win his first major with a 6-over 78 in the final round of the Masters. After starting Sunday a mere two strokes off the lead, he tumbled down the leaderboard into a tie for 22nd.

The fall was made more brutal considering where he had started just a few days earlier, with Hoffman taming punishing winds to shoot a brilliant 7-under 65 and claim a four-shot lead after the first round. His score was nearly 10 strokes better than the field average, prompting three-time Masters champ Nick Faldo to call it the best first round in history. Added former world No. 1 David Duval: “This is one of the greatest rounds of golf that you will see.”

Hoffman received a crystal vase for his round, a reward for the player who posts the low round of the day at the Masters. Joked the Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee: “They should give Charley Hoffman a crystal chandelier, or a house made of crystal. This is one of the greatest rounds ever played in the history of the Masters.”

Alas, Hoffman could not come close to repeating that first-round magic. He did well to stay in contention, but ultimately the weekend ended in disappointment, an opportunity lost.

The knowledge that Sergio Garcia played the round of his life to earn the green jacket, which happened to be his own major breakthrough, was small consolation. The memory of that dismal 41 on the always-pivotal back nine on Sunday was still too fresh.

“It was a quiet ride over here,” Hoffman said after finishing the pro-am at last week’s RBC Heritage, standing by the putting green as children clamored for his autograph. “But I enjoyed trying to dissect and see how I could improve and be better.

“I’ll be nothing but stronger for playing that final round.”

Hoffman, who defends his title at this week’s Valero Texas Open, was playing in just his fourth Masters and 23rd major overall. But the 12-year PGA TOUR veteran already had shown an affinity for Augusta National in 2015.

Hoffman opened with rounds of 67 and 68 that year and was solo second, albeit five strokes behind Jordan Spieth, who would go on to beat three-time Masters champ Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose by four. Hoffman played in the penultimate group on Sunday.

Two weeks ago, though, Hoffman was the one being chased -- and on one of the game’s biggest stages, no less. After his 65, he kept a share of the lead after a second-round 75, and was the solo leader until midway on the back nine in the third round, when he suffered a bogey and double bogey, the latter coming when he found the water at 16. That cost him a chance to start the final round tied for the lead with Garcia and Rose.

Then came four bogeys and a double bogey, his second of the day, on the back nine on Sunday. The 12-year PGA TOUR veteran acknowledged he “lost the wind out of the sails” as Garcia and Rose separated themselves from the pack.

But Hoffman is not one to lose perspective.

“I had a chance and I was in it for a long time,” he said. “I was leading the Masters after 40-some holes.

“It was a lot of fun and I know I can do it someday.”

HARSH LESSONS

Hoffman played his collegiate golf at UNLV where his teammates included Adam Scott and Chad Campbell. The former is a Masters champ and the latter a runner up at the 2003 PGA Championship.

Even now, 14 years later, Campbell wishes he could have had a mulligan on a couple of shots at Oak Hill when he lost to Shaun Micheel by two strokes. So he knows how Hoffman is feeling.

“But you don’t dwell on things,” Campbell said. “You want to take positives from it. He will learn from it and it will be easier next time.”

The two had a chance to talk at Hilton Head.

“I just told him good playing,” Campbell said. “When you get done with a tournament you don’t want to break down the things you should have done. You just want to move forward.”

Brandt Snedeker understands, as well.

He had his own tussle with Augusta National in 2008, playing in the final group on Saturday and Sunday, and owning a share of the lead after an eagle on No. 2 in the final round before making eight bogeys over the final 16 holes.

For Snedeker, it was a matter of finding the proper perspective.

“When you have the lead, you kind of learn from, ‘OK, I’ve teed off in the last group on a weekend and dealt with something I haven’t had to deal with before,’ ” Snedeker said. “Obviously, it didn’t go the way you wanted it to, but you’ve got to learn from that.

“Pick up from, ‘Hey, through 36 holes, I was leading the Masters. So, I was doing something right.’ … Whatever went wrong on the weekend, it’s Augusta. It’s hard. It’s tough. It’s going to change on you. So, I can’t be that far off from playing some really great golf.”

Hoffman said his strength is learning from his mistakes, not his accomplishments. Accomplishments, in most cases, are what you expect to happen, he explained.

“It’s learning from what you don’t expect to happen, sort of like at Augusta. I didn’t expect not to win and I’m going to learn from that,” he said.

“I’m going to be fine. I’m not going to go into this depression or anything like that. I’m going to be just fine. I’m going to give it another run this week. I’ve failed enough times to know that another failure is going to be in the future.

“But hopefully, there’s some successes, too.”

CONSISTENT AND UNDERRATED

Hoffman’s four wins can certainly be counted on the plus side of the ledger. Among active players on TOUR, only 38 have more victories – 13 with 10 or more and another 25 have between five and nine.

In addition, speaking to his consistency, Hoffman has never finished outside the top 70 in the FedExCup era and twice made the TOUR Championship. Not bad for a guy who was once known more for the blond hair that cascaded to his shoulders and a green glove courtesy of one of his sponsors, Waste Management.

“It’s one of those things, the hair sort of stood out, and now hopefully, my golf game stands out,” Hoffman said.

The stocky Californian characterizes his career as a successful one. But he knows he’s squandered chances – in fact, he has never converted any of his leads (after any round) on the PGA TOUR into victories, including his 54-hole advantage at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard last month.

“I’ve had plenty of opportunities to have won more than four times,” Hoffman said candidly. “But that being said, it’s not easy to win out here week in and week out.”

One chance Hoffman would like to have back came at the 2012 Travelers Championship. He held a two-stroke lead with two holes remaining only to finish with double bogey-bogey.

“I just hit a couple of bad shots,” Hoffman said. “It didn’t have to do with belief or anything. It’s not always belief. You don’t execute, you don’t execute. Balls go in the water. It can happen on the first hole or the 72nd hole.

“That one got away. … But the conversion rate of guys that are leading and closing the deal isn’t very high on the PGA TOUR. So it’s not like something that not everybody does.”

Hoffman, who is ranked 49th in the world after missing the cut at Harbour Town, has a win in each of the last two years, a streak he’d like to stretch to three in 2017. That said, he turned 40 in December and he knows his window of opportunity is narrowing.

“But I’m going to try to give myself chances to be in contention and try to get some wins in the 40s like Vijay (Singh) did,” Hoffman said with a smile.

Singh, for the record, picked up 22 wins after turning 40, including one major championship.

Ask Hoffman’s peers and they will likely tell you he’s underrated. At the very least, he flies under the radar.

“He’s strong, he hits the ball a long way and he puts a lot of work in on his game,” Campbell said. “I don’t think underrated is the wrong word.

“He doesn’t get a lot of publicity but we know how hard it is to win out here and what a good player he is.”

Snedeker agrees.

“He’s one of these guys who’s kind of a late bloomer and all of a sudden he’s kind of figured it out and he’s playing unbelievable golf,” he said. “So yeah, I think he’s definitely underrated.

“He plays quite a little bit so his world ranking is never going to be that high. But it seems like every time he plays, he makes cuts and gives himself chances on the weekend and he’s always kind of around the lead, if not in the lead.”

SAN ANTONIO STAR

Expect to find Hoffman there this week, as well. TPC San Antonio is one of his favorite courses, and it’s no wonder.

He’s played in the Valero Texas Open 11 times and only finished outside the top 13 once. In addition to last year’s win, he was runner-up in 2011 and tied for third in ’13.

“I’ve had more success at Valero than really any other golf course since it’s gone over there,” Hoffman said. “It’s a place where I feel comfortable, sort of like the Masters.

“I step on the property and it fits my eye. I just like the way it suits my game. Great place I look forward to playing every year.”

Last year, Hoffman started the final round two strokes off the lead held by Ricky Barnes. He held steady in the wind and made a 9-foot birdie at the 72nd hole to beat Patrick Reed by a stroke.

Hoffman comes to San Antonio in 2017 with renewed confidence in his putting, too, after his caddy, Brett Waldman, recognized a flaw in his alignment prior to the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

A month earlier, around the time he tied for fourth at the Genesis Open, Hoffman could sense that he was close to putting everything together. So, he gathered some of his closest confidants in the game – whom he declines to name – for some blunt talk.

The upshot? He needed more self-confidence.

“If you don't believe in yourself, who is going to believe in you?” Hoffman said. “I sat back with a few people that are close to me and I can ask those questions to and sort of all said the same thing.

“When they say it, it sort of hits you, and it's something I've started to believe in myself. As dumb as that sounds, sometimes you forget to do that out there, and I'm definitely doing it now.”