FRINGE CANDIDATE
An 18-foot-putt and a never-give-up attitude gave Mackenzie Hughes his first PGA Tour title
The historic highlight reel will record that Mackenzie Hughes won his first PGA Tour title on Monday morning by draining an 18-foot par putt from the fringe, a clutch stroke that brought him the $1.08-million winner’s purse at the RSM Classic at Sea Island, Ga.
But those who know Hughes will tell you it’s possible the most important moment of his career-changing weekend — one that earned him entry into The Masters and two-year membership on tour, among many other benefits — came in Saturday’s third round. Hughes, who shot an opening-round 61, had navigated the opening 46 holes of the tournament without making a bogey when he arrived at the Seaside course’s 11th hole. There, a wayward drive into a bunker and a questionable moment of decision-making gave him a triple-bogey 7.
Hughes’s lead had suddenly vanished. Given his history for youthful hot-headedness — and given this was just the fifth start of his rookie season on the PGA Tour — an immediate plummet down the leaderboard wouldn’t have come as a surprise. As Derek Ingram, Hughes’ coach during the player’s time with Canada’s national team, was saying on Monday: “A lot of guys have a hole like that and end up finishing 40th.”
The manner with which Hughes responded to the setback said a lot about why he became the first Canadian to win on tour since Nick Taylor in 2014. Instead of falling apart, Hughes birdied three of the next five holes to restore his lead and enter Sunday’s final round with a one-shot advantage. Instead of withering into also-ran status, he found himself in a five-man playoff from which he ultimately emerged as the victor.
“In years past I don’t think there would have been any way he would have come back to make three birdies to erase that deficit,” said Scott Cowx, a professional at Hamilton Golf and Country Club who began coaching Hughes about a decade ago. “That was a defining moment of the whole weekend.”
It was a defining weekend that didn’t come without some good fortune. On Monday morning, after Hughes made his big putt on the third playoff hole, three golfers had chances to extend the playoff by making par putts of their own. But Blayne Barber, Henrik Norlander and Camilo Villegas all took turns narrowly missing their attempts. And Hughes, who turns 26 on Wednesday, was soon enough cradling the trophy.
“I made the putt of my life right there,” Hughes told reporters.
The victory amounted to the most impressive achievement in the young life of a longtime overachiever who grew up playing at Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club. Herb Page, the GTA-bred golf coach at Kent State University, said it wasn’t long after Hughes arrived at the NCAA school that he established a reputation for fastidiousness both on and off the course.
“He took care of the details. Like, Mackenzie came to us with probably the best eating habits we’d ever seen in a 17-yearold. No fast foods. Never even see him drink a diet soda,” Page said.
Page said Hughes graduated from the school with a four-year degree in finance with a grade-point average of 3.8 — the rough equivalent of 93 per cent.
Twice named an academic all-American, he did it all while keeping up a game that won him back-toback Canadian amateur championships in 2011 and 2012.
“We use the words, ‘complete student-athlete.’ Well, he was it,” Page said. “This guy, he’s a champion. He was a champion when he came here. He’s a champion now. He’s just upping his game to the next level.”
Still, Hughes hardly took a straight line to professional success. Page said for all Hughes’s talent — he was always a solid ball-striker with elite club-head speed — he had a weakness common to many a perfectionist.
“He would beat himself up a lot,” Page said. “He’d be the first to tell you, ‘Coach Page and Mac had a lot of heart-to-heart talks.’ It was one of those things that had to be worked on all the time. But he worked at it . . . He just became more mentally tougher and less tough on himself. That’s part of going to college.”
The education has continued as a pro. A sub-standard year in 2014 saw Hughes lose his privileges on the Web.com Tour, the PGA Tour’s top feeder loop.
“Like a lot of us, he’d get pissed off and it would affect his play,” Ingram said. “But he really recognized it. And he said, ‘If I can get better at this, I like the rest of my game.’ ”
Ingram said of all the players who’ve come through Canada’s national-team program, it’s likely none used the in-house sports psychologist as often as Hughes. “Most guys are a little bit too cool for school. But Mackenzie has never been too cool for school. He’s always exhausted every avenue to get better,” Ingram said.
Playing in 2015 back on the Canadian Tour, Hughes earned his way back into the Web.com field for 2016, where he performed well enough to be granted a series of PGA Tour starts. If there were times along the way when Hughes questioned his worthiness as a pro, Cowx said he got a big confidence boost last month at the Safeway Open in Napa, Calif. Playing a couple of days alongside Phil Mickelson, the fivetime major champion, Hughes shot all four rounds in the 60s and finished tied for 13th.
“He realized, ‘I can play with these guys,’ ” Cowx said.
Last weekend, a few weeks after he wed college sweetheart Jenna in the couple’s adopted home state of North Carolina, where Jenna works for a marketing firm based in Charlotte, Hughes proved it. Riding a putting stroke that currently ranks him 14th on the PGA Tour, he also displayed a mental-game maturation. If his bounce-back from that Saturday triple-bogey proved massive, so did his handling of a Sundaynight setback. With darkness falling on Sea Island, Hughes faced a 10foot putt to win the tournament on the second playoff hole. He missed, and it would have only been human nature for Hughes to get mad at himself for squandering a golden chance. But no.
“He’s become very good at turning situations on their head,” Cowx said. “He said, ‘Billy Horschel had a putt to win. Blayne Barber had a putt on the last hole to win. They both missed.’ He said, ‘I’m lucky to be in this position. Let’s take advantage of that.’ . . . Same thing on the putt that won it. He said his initial thought was, ‘Oh my god, I have to make this to maybe go on.’ And he flipped that on its head a bit. He said he was thinking, ‘If I put this in, I’m going to put some real pressure on them.’ So it changes the mindset a little bit. That’s what good players do.”
A perfectionist at heart, Cowx said Hughes spent time after Monday’s big moment plotting what’s next.
“He’s very driven,” Cowx said. “And what’s driving him is the desire to be great.”