RBC CANADIAN OPEN

June 2, 2024

Mackenzie Hughes

Hamilton Golf and Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Can you sum up how you're feeling, I guess both physically and emotionally after this week?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Pretty gutted. Yeah, I wanted this one pretty badly. I don't know, this one will sting for awhile. I obviously got off to the start I needed to get off to and -- but I -- I just didn't, like besides yesterday -- yesterday I felt pretty good with my swing and I would say the other three days I really fought it. I just didn't feel like I had my stuff. It was a struggle just to kind of get comfortable and to kind of get myself set. Yeah, disappointed to finish the way I did. I had a chance going into that last nine and just couldn't put anything together. Pretty bummed.

Q. Were you looking at the leaderboard early on?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, I mean, I had a good idea that I guess the first five or six holes I had gotten myself right in the mix. I saw Robert hadn't got off to the fastest start, so I knew I was kind of right there. But, no, he had holes, you know, I guess. He was behind me, so you know he's got some chances still to come. I did have an idea, and I kind of knew like, I saw the board on 9 and kind of figured that was a big putt. I almost made the par of my life there. Missing that, and then seeing him at 16, I knew I had a big hill to climb. Yeah, I know it's a big week with a lot of energy spent and a lot of places and I don't know if I kind of just fell flat there at the end or what, but I just couldn't put it together.

Q. This is the second year in a row where there's Canadians right in there until the very end. What's it say about the state of the game in this country that Canadians are contending now on a yearly basis?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, no, it's a testament to both the Canadian players, but also the Golf Canada, the development program and what they have done for us in helping us get to where we are today. Yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting seeing the guys play well. Corey had a great round today and kind of got way up there, so I was happy to see that. Yeah, it's great group to be a part of and they're all great friends and great guys to be around.

Q. There was a silver lining for you today, the R & A tell me that you have qualified for the British Open. I know obviously you wanted to win today really badly, but how does that feel knowing that you'll get to play in another major this season?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: Yeah, no, that's great. It's a great, I guess, bonus after not getting what you want, but kind of hard to think about that at the moment. I made the bogeys on 13 and 14 and it was a struggle to get to the house from that point on, because I really just didn't feel like -- I kind of thought the wind was out of my sails and that I was fighting way uphill. Yeah, it's always great to get a major start under your belt and to play at Troon, I've played there before, so it's a really fun golf course and yeah, looking forward to getting there in July.

Q. You said you were fighting your swing. Yet on Sunday four or five holes in you're in the lead. So, I guess, how did you put yourself in that position if you were struggling with your swing as you were?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: You know, I've always felt like I had a pretty good knack for scoring my ball. So I just felt like I did a really good job early on of managing my game, maximizing a lot of that. I made a nice putt on 2 and 3. On 4 I missed it in the right spot going at the green, I missed it short right where the pin was back left. So I think early on I was doing a good job of just kind of putting it in the right spots, short gaming it pretty good. That was pretty much, I guess, how I kept myself in it. I made enough good swings, for sure, but I obviously needed a few more.

Q. When you put yourself in it like this and you have the fans so much in your corner, does that energize you or does that add a layer of pressure that everyone is now building expectation for what you might do?

MACKENZIE HUGHES: I mean, I would say yesterday it felt like, you know, a really fun atmosphere. Today I felt sort of the enormity of a few of the putts I had and a few of the shots. Kind of felt like I was running out of holes at times and that I needed to make something happen. Obviously in this game you can't really force things or feel like you need to start pressing, it's kind of a hard game to be pressing. So, yeah, I kind of felt like I just, today was a bit, a bit more heightened, I guess. I think that, yeah, it kind of caught up with me there around the turn, and kind of ran out of steam a little bit. But saying that, I had a putt on 12 to get to 13-under and, you make that, who knows with the, what the story is like coming in. So it's just one of those things, you never know, but I just didn't quite have it today.