BAD LIES & GOOD SHOTS
Coming off a second-place finish, a confident Hughes arrives at PGA Championship ... Florida swing a brute for players … Five Canadians make prestigious field
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Coming off a runner-up finish at the Honda Classic, Mackenzie Hughes is breathing easy this week at the Players Championship.
Remembering to breathe at all can be harder than it looks on the PGA Tour. More on that in a minute. Hughes, 29, turned his season around two weeks ago by making his first cut of 2020 and then parlaying it into the second biggest payday of his career. He did it by making the cut right on the number and then besting the entire field by three shots on the weekend, shooting 66-66 at PGA National, one of the toughest courses on tour.
“It was nice to see some hard work pay off and like I told you at Torrey Pines in January I didn’t feel like I was that far off,” Hughes said on Monday at TPC Sawgrass. “I didn’t really feel like there was that much different from coming in second and missing the cuts.”
Throughout his struggles, Hughes has always maintained his game was close.
“From the outside people are going to go ‘I don’t believe that,’ but until you are inside the ropes and seeing all the shots you can’t truly appreciate how close missing the cut by one or two is from being right in it.”
Heading into the Honda Classic, Hughes had only made a pair of cuts in 11 tournaments since the beginning of the PGA Tour’s 2019-2020 season last September, with his best finish a tie for 55th.
Every golfer on tour understands that golf is a fickle game and Hughes admitted earlier in the year that the difference between good and bad play is often intangible. He might not have known what he needed to do but at least he knew what he didn’t need to do.
“I think naturally you have those moments of
doubt but you try to put them to bed pretty quickly and remind yourself that you’ve done it before,” Hughes said. “There’s enough evidence out there of guys trying to make big changes or go to a new coach when things don’t work out for a while, and they make that change and they fall of the rails. I just kept sticking with it and it paid off at Honda.”
As Hughes battled eventual winner Sungjae Im down the stretch, viewers may have noticed the Canadian steadying himself with some focused breathing at key moments. It wasn’t a practice he learned in yoga class (we asked), it actually
came from Dr. Adrienne
Leslie-Toogood, a mental performance coach with Golf Canada.
Hughes remembered paying close attention to his breathing the week he won on the then-Web.com Tour in 2016, and did it again at Honda.
“I knew that when I was coming down the last few holes that it would be important to focus on but I was thinking about it from my first shot on Thursday until my very last shot on Sunday,” Hughes said. “It’s not always as easy as focusing on your breathing and getting good results, but the game is really splitting hairs at this level and you’re just trying to find that little something that gives you that bit of freedom.”
Now two weeks later, Hughes is at TPC Sawgrass and set to tee it up at the tour’s flagship event with a renewed confidence and sitting a comfortable 69th in the FedEx Cup standings.
“It’s a crazy game sometimes, but I’m feeling good,” Hughes said.
FLORIDA PUNISHMENT
When players are looking forward to TPC Sawgrass you know it’s been a tough stretch of golf.
“The last few weeks have been crazy firm I think it will be a little bit softer here,” Corey Conners said on Monday. “I’m expecting this course to be a little different with the overseed. I know they can suck the moisture out of the ground and firm things up but hopefully it’s not quite as big of a battle. When the wind blows it can be really tricky out here but I’m excited.”
The past two tournaments have shown how entertaining golf can be when mother nature plays along. As difficult as the wind was last week at Bay Hill for the Arnold Palmer Invitational, it was the rock hard greens that seemed to give players all they could handle.
The punishment started a week earlier at the Honda Classic where water is in play on 16 holes.
“This whole Florida swing has been a gauntlet,” Hughes said. “Bay Hill last week and four-under wins, six-under at the Honda. If it’s windy again this week and a little cooler, scores won’t be low again. I like that kind of golf because it rewards someone who’s patient and can grind out hard pars.”
CHIP SHOTS
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced a new nine-year media rights deal on Monday. As part of the new deal CBS and NBC will retain weekend coverage of most tournaments and the FedEx Cup playoffs. The Golf Channel will continue to air all early-round coverage. Financial terms were not released …
Michelle Wie was on a golf cart checking out TPC Sawgrass on Monday. Wie, who has taken an indefinite leave from playing due to a wrist injury makes her debut this week on Golf Central’s “Live From.” … There are five Canadians in the field this week: Hughes, Conners, Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor and Roger Sloan.