WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 24, 2022

Mackenzie Hughes

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. You always want to win, but when you win like you did today where you have to come from behind and you're kind of scrambling, is it more rewarding?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, because I'd say like kind of mid to late front nine it wasn't looking good for me, but I'd say towards the end of the back nine, Max and I both kind of made a mess of a couple holes, so it kind of kept me in it.

Then kind of 11, 12, there was some momentum there where I made a putt to avoid going 3-down on 11, and then 12, I hit it in the water off my second shot, got up-and-down, and he didn't get up-and-down for birdie.

In that sort of span of like 30 minutes I felt like even though I had won a hole I had kind of picked up some momentum and then I won 13, 14 and 15 and 16, and just from there I just -- yeah, it was just a nice little roll I got on and I feel like in match play more than stroke play probably the momentum really can shift a match, and I felt like I kind of got some there towards the early back nine and just kind of rode it.

Q. There's been a number of comebacks on the back nine today. I'm going to guess six, seven or eight. Why does that happen do you think?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: It's so tricky, this place, with the wind. Because there are gusts that blow 25 and then it could lay down and blow 10. But if you're over the ball thinking it's going to be 10 and then it's 25, like it's just -- it creates indecision. The course is already fairly small to begin with. Like it's just a small ballpark and you feel like off the tee sometimes it doesn't give you a ton of room. Then you get the wind blowing and it creates some havoc. So I think the back nine -- 15, from 160 yards you're trying to all-out nuke a 7-iron. There's some guesswork, and it's just tough.

It's hard to, I think, hold the lead down the stretch. If you start to lose a few shots, it can kind of get away from you a little bit.

Q. It's not exactly easy on the guy trying to make up ground, though, either, is it?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: No, but I kind of got in my head earlier in that back nine. I felt like a lot of pars and the occasional birdie were going to be good enough. I thought the way the course was playing -- it was hard to make even those five- and six-foot putts because the greens are so exposed and you've got crosswinds. So I just thought if I can just kind of plot away and be kind of steady coming down the stretch, I'll probably be all right.

Q. How long was the putt on 11?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Probably was seven feet. It was pretty meaty.

Q. Two meters?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Two meters. A little less than -- yeah, maybe two meters. I don't even know. Why you got to do that to me?

Q. When you get off to a slow start, is it hard to sort of climb your way out of that mentally, where if you get behind two, three, four holes is that harder than if this was a stroke-play event?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, I think knowing that this format anything can really happen. I think that it kind of lends itself to you thinking, all right, like let's just hang in there and if I can just keep putting some pressure on him, you never know when someone is going to make a mistake and just potentially give you a hole and let you back in it.

So I think it's easier in a way to stay patient just because you only need -- you're not trying to catch 10 guys. If you're in 10th place and you need to get to first, you need to get past all those guys, right, whereas in match play if one guy just happens to lose his swing for three, four holes, you just never know when that's going to come and you've got to be ready to take advantage of that.

My caddie did a great job today of reminding me kind of through the end of the front nine -- I was getting a bit frustrated with myself. I had bogeyed 7 and 8 but so had Max. It kind of felt like a point in the match where things may have gotten away from me, but my caddie did a great job of keeping me in it, and then again, I just -- these things are so hard. Every match is so hard because every time you play a guy it's a world-class player, and Max has been playing great for the last few years and he's an awesome player. So I just knew I was going to have my hands full the whole way in.

Yeah, just fortunate to get the win.

Q. I know the answer but I'm going to ask it anyway. When you're down and you're on the back nine, is there any part of you that's thinking about how much tomorrow would suck if you don't have a chance to advance?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Oh, yeah. I thought about that before the back nine. I think I was on like 8 or 9 just thinking, you know, things weren't really going my way. I just thought, man, I'd love to just play tomorrow with some sort of hope. I mean, I still don't -- Dustin controls his fate, but if Max beats him -- I don't even know how that works. Would there be a three-way playoff? So that would be interesting. I'm very hopeful for that scenario to happen. I would obviously love a chance to advance, and now I have a chance barring a Dustin loss. So yeah, something to play for tomorrow.

Q. Being here in Austin and seeing quite a few guys hole some putts from off the green, big putts, when do you decide to use a Texas wedge? What goes into your calculus of when you decide to chip or putt something like that?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: I think around the greens here, you get -- you can get some really fast ones that -- a green is running away and you've got wind behind you so I feel like sometimes rather than take that chance of like if you don't quite catch a chip perfect, you might get a chip running away from you way too fast, so sometimes you just want to get one rolling on the green with a little bit of pace. Greens are really fast right now, so I think that kind of plays into it. Like what's the wind doing. Not only that but when the wind is blowing as hard as it is, like if you're chipping into the wind, those chips now spin and check that much more. So you're just -- I think whenever you can keep it simple, like when it's this windy and blustery, if you keep the ball on the ground chances are your bad shots are going to be a little bit better than your bad shots with a chip. That's kind of how I look at it.

Q. Do you have any throughout your career or someone you're playing with that you've seen that really stick out in your memory?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: As far as what?

Q. Just like a long putt from off the green or something special dropping for you?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Todd Hamilton at the British. I think it might have been a hybrid but he was like 40 yards short of the green. Where was that, Troon? In '04? I can remember that one. He was like hitting his hybrid all week and he was way short of the green and just kind of bumped it up there to like this.

I mean, I've made a few of my own, but that one stands out, I guess.