MONTREAL—Mackenzie Hughes stood upon the large dais Wednesday at Royal Montreal Golf Club attempting to do some quick math. He’d been asked how many times he’s partnered with in Tuesday money games on the PGA Tour through the years. “Well, let’s see: Corey and I have been on tour, him seven (years), me eight, 25-ish tournaments a year.
We play basically every week together. I’m going to say well into the hundreds — 150, 175 times on Tuesday where we’ve played somebody in some fashion,” Hughes calculated. The followup was obvious: What is your winning percentage? “Well, him and I are usually playing someone on the west coast,” Hughes answered, referring to B.
C. boys and frequent opponents Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor. “I’d say we win a lot.
Eighty per cent.” But no victory bigger that Friday’s. Plenty of trouble lurks down the stretch at Royal Montreal’s Blue Course, which makes it a Hughes and Conners partnered in the most meaningful match of their lives and delivered a phenomenal performance, dusting Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau 6-and-5.
It was a conquering that concluded when Conners hit his tee shot on the 211-yard par-3 13th hole to five feet. Hughes rolled the ball in for the pair’s seventh birdie of the day and, as he’d done from the start, cupped his right ear with his hand and prompted the fans to roar even louder. Between them, Conners and Hughes hardly missed a shot.
And while it would be unfair to say they sparked Friday’s big I.