Canadian golfer Hughes plays like an old pro, not a rookie
Dundas, Ont., native captured 1st PGA Tour win in Georgia
Say this about Canada's newest millionaire: Mackenzie Hughes was full value for his first PGA Tour victory.
Hughes, a Dundas, Ont., native who turns 26 on Wednesday, won the RSM Golf Classic Monday morning in St. Simons Island, Ga., in a five-man playoff with a dramatic par-saving putt from the apron of the 17th green.
The win earned Hughes $1.08 million US, and a PGA Tour exemption through 2019. He also gets a spot in the 2017 Masters, among other perks that include entry in the no-cut Tournament of Champions in Hawaii to kick off 2017.
Hughes's victory also sent scores of Canadians who still had sleep in their eyes to their web browsers with variations of this question: Who, exactly, is Mackenzie Hughes?
A man who knows him well helped fill-in the grey area.
"He's a just a great ambassador for this area, for our club. This is a huge thrill for us and our members," said John Kirkwood, head professional at Dundas Valley Golf and Country Club, where Hughes grew up and learned the game. "He started here as a six- or seven-year-old on our par 3 course, [but] I think it was probably a couple years after he went to college that I knew there was something special about him."
Those special qualities were on display since Thursday when Hughes shot the lights out with a nine-under-par 61 to take the early lead. Hughes held at least a share of that lead through four rounds, but missed a 10-footer on the second playoff hole in near darkness Sunday afternoon that pushed the tournament over to a Monday finish.
Hughes was joined in the playoff by veteran pros Billy Horschel and Camilo Villegas, who have seven PGA Tour victories between them, along with Swede Henrik Norlander and American Blayne Barber, who like Hughes, were seeking their first PGA Tour wins.
Horschel missed a brush-in on the first playoff hole and was eliminated. Once the remaining quartet convened shortly after dawn on Monday, no one was able to hit the green with their tee shots on the par-3, 17th hole. With all four players facing tense, par-saving putts, Hughes was the first to go and promptly drained his from 18 feet, then watched as Barber, Norlander and then Villegas all missed from significantly shorter distances.
Clutch putt
In effect, Hughes' clutch shot was an almost $700,000 putt when stacked up against his $1.08-million winner's cheque, and the $396,000 that the four runners-up got for tying for second. It also made Hughes the first PGA Tour rookie in 20 years to win by going wire-to-wire.
Hughes' victory makes him one of just nine Canadian men to have won PGA Tour events, and the first since Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., who won in Mississippi two years ago.
"A lot of us have plans to go to college [on a golf scholarship]," said Kirkwood, who last saw Hughes at Dundas Valley in September when he dropped by for a corporate event with Dundas Valley members. "But with Mackenzie, there was a certain maturity and professionalism about him after he won the Canadian Am that made him special…you and I think he just knew by then that he could make it to the PGA Tour."
Kirkwood is referring to the Canadian Amateur titles Hughes won while still playing collegiate golf at Kent State University under the tutelage of legendary coach Herb Page, a fellow Canuck. A victory on the PGA Tour Canada in 2013 helped Hughes be the top money earner on that circuit and got him a spot on the Web.com Tour in 2014. An indifferent stretch followed but Hughes clinched a PGA Tour card by winning on the Web.com circuit in August.
The victory on Monday came in just his fifth start this season, a stretch that included his October marriage to new wife, Jenna.
The newlyweds plan on taking their honeymoon next month in Thailand. Presumably, an upgrade in accommodations is in order.