OverDrive - Hughes on the RBC Canadian Open experience, the skill set on the course and playing at TPC Toronto

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

PGA Tour Golfer Mackenzie Hughes joined OverDrive to discuss the mindset entering the RBC Canadian Open, the experience playing TPC Toronto and the advantages of the course, the preparation for the U.S. Open, the skill set of his putting game and around the green and more.

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Yeah, we're feeling good. Yeah, excited to be here. Obviously, first time venue at T.Toronto at Osprey Valley and don't have a lot of experience here. But, yeah, so far what I've seen looks good and, yeah, it should be a great week. Well, in terms of preparing for a new course, like we're seeing it with guys getting to Oakmont and trying to play Oakmont before the U.S. Open next week. You can't really do that with the British Open, I guess.

You can't just pop in and play it. How often would you try to get up here to play one of these Canadian Open courses you know prior to the tournament actually starting? Honestly it's pretty rare if it happens you know if I'm up here visiting with family, then maybe I get a chance to go out and pop out to all these courses ahead of time. But not typically for a Canadian Open. Our schedules are so busy leading up to it

that I feel pretty confident that I get somewhere Monday and by Thursday I'm gonna feel pretty good going there to get up on Thursday. So not typically gonna do that for maybe a Canadian Open I mean yeah honestly for Oakmont I didn't go to Oakmont in advance and one of those things where you're so busy and tied up and what the all the tournaments and you know trying to compete and do well with those it's hard to make time to do all these scouting trips so You know I hadn't been here before

But you know feel pretty good about You know the golf course and it's mostly in front of you. I don't there's too many. You know tricked up holes so You know shouldn't be too hard to get that bang of It shouldn't be too hard to get that bang off. So Mack, will there be some guys that literally only walk nine holes in the Pro-Am and that's all they'll see of the golf course and just give it a rip without seeing the whole thing or what? I would think so. I would think there's probably five to ten guys might might roll up and do that. You

know, a guy off top of my head I'm thinking of is like a Cam Young, who played, you know, qualifier yesterday for the US Open, you know, did a day with RBC today with me. And, you know, I can picture him probably playing nine holes tomorrow in the Pro-Am. His caddy walks the other nine, you know, and he relies on his caddy for that, know scouting report of the other nine and he does his best to kind of you know manage the golf course from there so which is not you know it's not super uncommon I mean that happens from time to time you know you get

tied up in a busy week and you know it's probably better for him to be rested than for him to have walks you know the other nine so you know a guy like better for him to be rested and for him to have walks you know the unites so uh... you know that i got like that can uh... can definitely get by with someone just got point in the right direction so uh... you you play your dog and i know you're uh... and you show a sixty four here on the on the house a correction that there's a correction and a correction that must it must be too hard because uh... nausea that's a fact that i just want'm scared. I just want to correct you. I just want to correct you, pal. We did the score today. 63?

No, it was 2. 62. I did a flyover of every hole because these bozos couldn't keep score properly. It was a 62. But anyway. It'll be 59 by Thursday, Mac. It just keeps getting better every single day. Course record by the time you guys put the tip in the ground. Believe me. I love it. Yeah. I love it.

Mac, how do you feed into the energy of playing on home soil throughout the week and maybe leading into the weekend? Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a lot of fun. Obviously, when the Canadian guys are home, we feel like we're kind of the crowd favorites. And kind of got a bit of a pretty average pairing this week with a couple of scrubs from Canada as well. So yeah, we should have some good crowd support out there.

And it'll be a lot of fun playing with Nick and Taylor. And yeah, we'll definitely have some large galleries. It'll be a lot of fun playing with Nick and Taylor. We'll definitely have some large galleries and hopefully making a bunch of birdies to get the crowds going. I think it's a lot of fun. We don't get to do it very often where we're crowd favors. I think all the guys kind of relish the opportunity with uh mckenzie hughes again you'll be playing thursday and friday with nick taylor and taylor pendreth uh up at tpc toronto and and you're a guy you're known for your short game you're known as

one of the best putters in the world you know when when this you mentioned trying to learn this course and everything's in front of you how much of it though is you preparing for the greens and trying to get arena on how they roll you know how're set up, where the pins are going to be, like take us through your process when it comes to learning the new greens, especially considering how good of a putter you are. Yeah, I feel like, you know, new green complexes on a different difficult golf course or a different golf course. Sometimes you don't know where all the best leaves are. I think that's where you rely on a good caddy to have done some good prep.

But obviously there's going to be learning for everybody here, which is kind of nice. No one here really has a ton of course history, so you're not going back to Yardage Book and looking at past putts or putts you've hit at prior tournaments. It's just a lot of seeing with your eyes and then doing it with feel. That's kind of where I tend to excel. I think the fact that there's not much course data or course history here is nice. Like I said, everyone's trying to learn it for the first time and again, I think that yeah, the greens are kind of, I don't know if O'Dogg kind of attested

to this, but like the greens are quite undulating and they have quite a bit of movement in them, so you know, there's not really tons of straightforward putts and it should allow a good putter to kind of separate themselves a little bit. Lots of sideboards, Mac. The only advice I would give is just keep it under the hole. Dude, shut up. Dude, I swear to God, man. Just keep it under the hole, have some uphill putts and you'll be dialed in.

Next question. Hazy, go ahead. How would you respond seriously if this guy oh dog calls you at seven o'clock in runs you through the course runs you through the layout how he played it how would you respond to that type of action I mean the guy can shoot 62 around there or 59 or whatever was I mean he must be pretty good so he must he must know his way around there. I mean, again, I, you know, I get advice from all kinds of people. So I mean, I'm sure I've heard worse.

Oh, I'm sure you have, man. We we we stumbled across around the green guy a few years ago, I think was at St. George's. Dude, they're so drunk and so goofy, man. I don't know how you guys deal with those morons on a daily basis God that guy was insane Yeah, the nice thing for you Jeff when you play in the NHL like I mean those guys existed They were in the they were in the stands, but you couldn't hear him. We mean we we hear all that stuff on a daily Exactly. It's just gotta be insane

It's not ideal, but you know we've heard it all now at this point, so it's kind of like, you can kind of... You can kind of tune it out. Yeah, I guess you have to, right? You have to. I mean, ultimately, in the end, you gotta go out there and play, but there's... Everyone's got two cents, everyone,

oh, you should have done this, oh, I missed it long, oh. It's like, all right, well, these guys are professionals out there hacking and whacking. with Mackenzie Hughes. My wife, my wife, my wife gets some good ones. You know, she'll be out in the gallery or my family's out there in the gallery and you get like a random person beside you and like, they don't know that like, you know, that's Mackenzie Hughes wife or his mom or whatever. And yeah, some random guys like, Oh, what an idiot idiot why do you hit it there what a shitty shot it's like my wife or my mom next to them and they're like hey shut up yeah he's drawing his best out there all right exactly man he's just

trying like just leave him alone please he's doing his best he's won on tour this guy's a professional in terms of like this time of year once we like we got obviously the Canadian Open this year this week you got the US Open next week got the Open Championship coming up like how does this kind of next month month and a half rank for you in terms of the the schedule on tour? It's uh you know it's obviously a pretty big one, with this one starting off, US Open next month. Yeah, I mean it's busy, but also obviously a fun stretch. We've got the Open coming up in like five weeks. So yeah, with the, you know, a couple of majors, Scottish, all that involved,

it's yeah, it's big. I'm actually in the midst of this is my sixth tournament in a row right now. US Open is going to be seven. I'm kind of, I want a bit of a bender right now. So trying to manage my energy the best I can right now. But yeah, it's a busy stretch. It's probably like, you know, this time of year, almost every year, it seems like we're kind of going through this stretch. It's, you know, the Memorial Canadian Open,

US Open Traveler's stretch. And then, you know, beyond that, you've got Scottish, British. So this time of year, it's, you know, pretty dense,'ve got Scottish British so this time of year it's pretty dense but lots of great opportunities, lots of cool golf courses to play coming up I'm excited for Oakmont, excited for Port Rush so yeah, it's going to be great we're looking forward to it and hopefully we can go on a nice little run

Absolutely man, we're pulling for you as we always do you and all the Canadians, it's going gonna be awesome this week up at TPC Toronto. We're up there tomorrow Thursday Friday so we'll see you when we get up there. Good luck and as always we appreciate you doing this. Hey just a quick question should I tip my uber driver or not? Is this a 5-star Uber driver? Look at the champ there just driving you around. not Five stars now we thought you were driving a little bit bumpy a little bit bumpy, but we got here So I love it. Thanks for being nice to me boys. Appreciate you got it. Shout out to you and your uber driver now We're pulling for both you guys See you guys. I appreciate you having me on. We'll talk

to you soon. You got it. Thanks guys. There's Mackenzie Hughes with Nick Taylor driving him around. This Pride season celebrate with the station that's as bold, vibrant and diverse as you are. I heart Pride Canada from dance anthems to pop icons. Let's celebrate diversity and love. And hits from 2SLGBTQ Plus Canadian artists. Be yourself and stand proud. It's your soundtrack for Pride and Beyond.

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