RBC Heritage

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Mark Hubbard

Press Conference

Q. Congratulations on a great start. 7-under 64 today through round 1 at the RBC Heritage. Just kind of take us through the round.
MARK HUBBARD: I mean, it was all putting for me. I made a lot of par putts early on that got me some momentum, and from there I started hitting -- you know, with that momentum, I started hitting a lot more iron shots close and stuff. So once I had it rolling, it kind of went from there.

I made an awesome par save on the 17th, so my eighth hole, I made like a 20-footer from the fringe. From then on, it was kind of easy after that.

Q. You said outside, you talked about how confident you are now with your mental game. If you could just elaborate on how much that space between your ears is in helping you translate to the golf course.
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, big time. I went through a pretty rough patch with my game in 2017 and '18, and I was just so results oriented. It's a tough space to live in because nothing's ever good enough. This game is hard enough already, and even when you shoot 64, I still feel like I left some out there.

So if you're constantly feeling like you're just your result, it's a miserable way to live. I've gotten a lot better at just controlling the things that I can control -- you know, my breathing, getting good pictures in my head, stuff like that, where I can actually judge myself. Because you can hit a great shot, and it can kick right in the bunker. You have no idea. So I'm just doing a lot better job of that. It's, A, led me to be a lot happier, and I think that's why I'm playing well.

Q. How did you spend the last few months -- you were telling me on the way in, if you could just share -- how you kept yourself, game and mind, fresh?
MARK HUBBARD: It was great. I live in the Woodlands. We didn't have a ton of restrictions. Obviously, we did a good job of social distancing on the courses, but I got to play a lot of golf. There's five or six guys that live down there with me, Patrick Reed, Jhonny Vegas, Bronson Burgoon. So we had a lot of fun games.

It was good to have some time off. I think people don't realize how long our season actually is with the wraparound. So as much as I miss competing, we never get a break like that.

So it was really nice to have a break to, A, take a step back and enjoy your life beyond golf, but, B, to actually work on some stuff and feel like you're making gains because a lot of the year you're just trying to maintain just because you're playing so much.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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