By Herb PageHead Men's Golf Coach
What a great week for Kent State!
On Sunday, Mackenzie Hughes shot 6-under and finally wins on the PGA Tour Canada at the Cape Breton Classic. We had texted him the week before. That message was just to say stay patient because he had finished second the week before and sixth before that.
Here's a guy who had no status on the Canadian Tour, and now all of a sudden he is the leading money winner and he is guaranteed a Web.com Tour card.
What people may not realize is Mackenzie is just two years out of Kent State and he is just 23 years old. The future is bright. He has always been such a hard worker and I just couldn't be more happy for him.
Here's a link to the story in the Hamilton Spectator: "Hughes puts exclamation point on remarkable summer."
And then the next day we watched another win for Corey Conners at the Gopher Invitational. That's pretty exceptional, winning back-to-back titles and being the first to do it in the nine-year history of that event.
The way Corey won this week was so impressive. He just works his way around the golf course like a surgeon. It's precision. He maps it all out. One of his big strengths is he is very determined, and he is also incredibly committed. If we could get some more commitment from some of our other guys, where they commit to shots, then we are going to get better.
Corey needed a birdie on the last hole to win on Sunday. He had a three-putt on 16 where he had a long one that dribbled by just a little bit, and then he missed. He was paired with All-American Brandon Hagy of Cal, who knocked it in to three-feet for birdie to trim Corey's lead down to two shots. Then Corey hit a bad drive, pitched out and had to get it up and down, making a seven footer for bogey.
All of a sudden Corey and Hagy are standing on 18 dead tied when Corey had a three-shot lead most of the day. That 18th was a different hole that day. In the previous two rounds, Corey hit a 3-wood down the left side and played the par-5 tick-tack-toe. This time, he challenged the water hazard, and if you don't fly it, you tee it up and hit again.
To clear the hazard was about 292-yard carry, and Corey made it by four or five yards. There was no doubt in Corey's mind. That's a big strength in golf. He took a 5-iron onto the green, needing to carry it about 211 to get it onto the front third of the green. Again, water to the right, bunker to the left, and he just knocked it right on. The ball released up. He had 35 feet, lagged it up, and tapped it in for the win.
It's not about the shot-making for Corey. I really believe it is about the pre-planning and his commitment to the shots he is hitting.
What a great week, but let's have a reality check. We finished third as a team. We did a lot of good things, like leading in birdies. But we had so many unforced errors that kept us from winning the tournament. We had a few three-putts from inside 10 feet. We had a couple of four-putts. Our short games let us down. This is one that got away.
The Gopher Invitational was a great field. But when you have a guy finish as medalist with all of the birdies we made as a team, you should win. Our guys know that. If we don't get to work on our weaknesses, we are just going to be an average top-20 team, and we don't want that. So, we have some work to do.
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