WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 24, 2021

Mackenzie Hughes

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you assess your match?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: You know, I felt like I was in control of my game today. I knew I was in for a handful with Paul. Paul is an unreal player, and I knew he wasn't going to give me too much. He was in a lot of holes and doesn't hit too many poor shots, so that was kind of my mentality was to keep the ball in play a lot today and just have a bunch of looks.

It worked out for me, and yeah, just pretty thrilled with the win.

Q. This being your first time here, how hard do you think it is to win one of these matches?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: You know, when I got to 12 and missed the putt to go 4-up and then 13 lost the hole there and missed about a five-, six-footer, so I was starting to feel it a little bit at that point. You know, it's hard to run a guy out of holes. You're just trying to work him down and I had a nice lead there, but it is very tough and especially against a player like Paul. Yeah, I was just very happy with how things closed out there.

Q. How do you think this course fits your game just with it being very match play centric and a lot of different ways you can play some of these holes?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, I like it. It's kind of a thinking golf course and a lot of strategy, just hitting it in the right places on the greens. Like I said, there's many different ways to play the golf course, so yeah, I like it. It sets up well for me. It's not bombs away and go find it. I kind of like that and that kind of gives guys like myself a chance to beat a guy like Paul and have some good matches.

Q. What was your last match play experience?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: I haven't won a match play match in a long time. I think I went for, I want to say two Western Ams and two U.S. Ams in the span of two years, 2011 and 2012, I played four matches in those match play events and played great and got beat every time. It's tough to swallow. Match play, that's kind of the nature of the beast. You can play great and lose, you can play not so great and win, just depends on the day.

Yeah, so it's been a while for me, but it was fun to get back out there and play a different format.

Q. You said in the cart your family is probably the only ones that picked you today. How gratifying is it to start your week off against someone like Casey who's played so well in these events and has had a lot of success?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, I knew Paul had a proven track record, and I had read a lot of the stuff online, and like I said, not many people were probably putting money down on me, but if they did, you're welcome, and yeah, just again, a very hard-fought, tough match, and it is very gratifying to beat a player like that because his track record speaks for itself, and unbelievable player.