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Mackenzie Hughes is teeing it up this week at The Sentry, the 2024 PGA Tour season opener. It has been designated as one of the eight Signature Events for this year.
There is a larger purse, a smaller field and will reward additional FedEx Cup points.
The only reason Hughes will be in the field is because Jon Rahm ditched the PGA Tour for LIV Golf. That move vaulted Hughes up one spot in the final 2023 FedEx Cup standings to 50th, earning him exemption into the eight Signature Events this year.
He is grateful for that opportunity, and will gladly take it. Yet, he appears to have become a disgruntled PGA Tour veteran and let his frustration flow Tuesday from Kapalua, Hawaii, the site of The Sentry.
“All these guys going to LIV have made it pretty clear that it’s all about money… so to me that’s disappointing.
“But now that I’m qualified for these events, I mean, obviously it would be silly for me not to play in these events. They are great opportunities. But, like, I just don’t think it’s right,” Hughes said.
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Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images
He then turned his ire to the PGA Tour.
“2019 was all about golf, you know? Our economic model was sustainable. The LIV threat came along and all of a sudden we started to double the purses, and we’re asking sponsors to double their investment, and we’re giving them the same product.”
Hughes is a member of the PAC (Player Advisory Council) that consults with the PGA Tour Policy Board on matters related to the tour. Yet, they were left in the dark or caught off guard numerous times.
That included the infamous ‘players only meeting’ in Delaware in 2022.
“I think that definitely told me whose opinion mattered. I mean, there was 70 PGA TOUR players there and they thought only 25 or 30 of them were good enough for that meeting? Bit of a slap in the face.
“You got 70 of the best players on the PGA TOUR that season, and you’re going to tell me I can’t sit in that meeting and at least listen? You can just put me in the back and say, Hey, Mac, don’t speak, but you can at least listen to what we’re saying. It was like this closed doors meeting for the who’s who of the TOUR,” Hughes said passionately.
The 33-year-old Canadian even tried putting things into perspective of the fans.
“Fans also, I think, are left wondering, like, do guys even love playing golf anymore, or are they all just concerned about money.
“The fan just wants to watch golf. I think you watch sports for an escape from other nonsense, but I think golf has brought a lot of nonsense onto its plate, and now you don’t get just golf, you get a lot of other stuff going on. It’s a bit of a circus.”
It’s easy to understand where Hughes is coming from. He touched on a number of times where the PAC and the Policy Board met to discuss something without an end result, only to find out in the news the Tour had decided to go ahead anyway.
Like so many others, he is hoping for golf to come together again. But also like so many, how that can possibly happen given the current state of the sport is a mystery.
Kendall Capps is the Senior Editor of SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms.
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