THE NORTHERN TRUST

August 19, 2021

Mackenzie Hughes

Liberty National Golf Club

Press Conference

Q. How would you assess your round out there today?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: It was a good day. I thought it was playing pretty tricky, so I was trying to give myself as many putts as possible from the green, and I was fortunate enough to hole a few nice ones. Overall, I felt like the day was pretty stress free and a solid start.

Q. What was the most difficult part of the wind out there? There's a lot of crosswind holes out there, not like down and into it?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, that's a pretty fair assessment. I would say at least three-quarters of the holes, if not more, were some version of cross. Even if they weren't directly across, they were a 730 wind or a 130 wind, so it's kind of quartering. Never had it straight down and straight in. It made it tricky.

I think just the velocity for a smaller venue. So there's not tons of room to hit it on some of these holes, and you get the crosswinds going, and the fairways look that much smaller. That was probably the toughest part of today.

Q. We talked all throughout the summer how your confidence is building, how you played in the U.S. Open and Open Championship, playing in the Olympics as well. Where would you assess your confidence is right now?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, it's growing. I think that you're never -- I don't know how the saying goes, but even when you're playing well, the journey is never over, and if you're playing poorly, good golf is not that far away. I've proven both of those theories this summer. I know I missed five straight cuts, and then I led the U.S. Open after three rounds.

But the last 18 months, two years have been quite good, lots of good results, and the confidence is growing with those good results. Hopefully, I keep adding to that.