Hughes flirts with rare milestone
Canadian settles for 60 at Travelers first round
World No. 1 golf superstar Rory Mcilroy shot his lowest round of the PGA Tour season to take the lead at the Travelers Championship on Thursday morning. Canadian Mackenzie Hughes beat him by three shots.
With plenty of eyes on the third week of golf ’s restart, Hughes flirted with shooting 59 at TPC River Highlands, finishing with a 10- underpar 60 to take the lead into Friday’s second round.
“I’ve shot 61 twice in competition, once at Sea Island and once at a mini- Tour event,” Hughes said after his round. “Both times there was an outside chance the last few holes to shoot 59. Kind of similar deal to today where I kind of needed to birdie the last few holes.”
Hughes began on the 10th hole and made one birdie through his first four holes, nothing special out of the gate. Things changed beginning at the par- 4 14th hole when he rolled in a 15- foot putt that began a run of five birdies in a row capped off with a 30-foot bomb to shoot 29 on his first nine.
“I made the turn and was 6- under, and at that point was obviously feeling quite good about it, and birdied two, and that’s kind of when it first dawned on me that 59 was kind of in play,” he said.
Hughes recently missed a putt for 59 while practising during the COVID-19 break at TPC Piper Glen in Charlotte.
There’s never an easy way to shoot a 59 on the PGA Tour and Hughes needed four birdies over his final four holes to join fellow Canuck Adam Hadwin and become the 11th man ever to post a sub- 60 round.
He made a tap-in birdie at the par- 5 sixth. Three more to go. He made a 13- foot birdie putt at the par- 4 seventh. Two more to go. The dream looked over at the par-3 eighth, before he rolled in a 30- footer. ONE MORE TO GO.
Hughes’ tee shot at the par- 4 ninth hole found the rough, but was just 92 yards from the hole.
“Just had the worst lie I think I’ve had all week, and certainly in a long time,” Hughes said. “Just really like nestled down and the rough was really thick around my ball, so just kind of came out really dead ... came out like a marshmallow.”
Hughes approach came up short, leaving him a 40- foot- 8- inch putt for the closing birdie. He hit it on the perfect line. Despite telling himself to get it to the hole and give himself a chance, Hughes’ putt came up four feet short of 59.
“That one shot means a lot more than 61 to 60, “he said. “That’s a big leap. I kind of joked walking off there that 59 wasn’t even the record because of Jim (Furyk’s) 58, I mean, it’s probably not even that special around here. But for a personal milestone, it would have been really, really neat. You just don’t get very many chances in your life to do it.”
Hughes was referring to Furyk’s PGA Tour record score of 58, shot in 2016 at this same tournament. Thursday’s 60 is Hughes lowest score of his career and his 10 birdies is also a personal best.
It’s been a strange season for the 29- year- old native of Dundas, Ont. Hughes began the 2019-20 campaign missing nine of 11 cuts and making just US$ 30,000 through five months of the season. His patience was severely tested during that stretch but Hughes and swing coach Derek Ingram refused to panic, with both men insisting his game was close and determined to stay the course.
“We can’t BS ourselves but we also can’t search for stuff when it’s really not that bad,” Ingram told Postmedia in February.
Although Hughes didn’t know it at the time, in what would be his final tournament before the 91- day COVID- 19 shut down, it all came together. Hughes shook off five straight missed cuts to finish solo runner- up at the Honda Classic to Sungjae Im, pocketing $ 763,000 and turning his fortunes around.
“I kind of showed myself I still had what it took to play well and to compete for trophies,” he said Thursday, thinking back to the Honda. “That was very important. Going into what we didn’t even know was going to be a three-month break was huge for psyche, mental outlook on the game, just knowing I had that in my back pocket as I sat at home for a few months. Huge, huge boost for me.”
Dramatic turnarounds look to be the theme of the season for Hughes. Last week at the RBC Heritage he found himself in contention heading into Sunday’s final round, before shooting a stunning 78, falling all the way into a tie for 70th.
For what it ’ s worth, Hughes said his game felt great heading into that final round and he couldn’t put his finger on what, if anything, changed between that 78 and this career-best 60.
“No difference really from Sunday to here, just 18 shots,” Hughes said. We asked him if that makes golf so great or so stupid?
“Both,” he said.
You just don’t get very many chances in your life to do it.