Hughes Has a Major June 1 Birthday Wish
5/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 25, 2008
TUSCALOOSA - June 1, 2008. Matt Hughes mentally penciled in the date on his calendar a year-and-a-half ago. It will be his 23rd birthday.
That he'd turn 23 on that date was not significant. What he knew then that he wants to do now when he wakes up on June 1, 2008 is. Hughes wants to wake up that morning as a national champion.
Hughes' dream's path to becoming a reality starts Sunday, May 25 when he and four of his University of Alabama golf teammates board a charter plane from Tuscaloosa bound for West Lafayette, Ind. There the Dalton, Ga., native and America's No. 1 ranked collegiate men's golf team, the Crimson Tide, will compete for the 2008 NCAA Golf Championship. Official competition begins on Wednesday, May 28 and continues through the championship final round on Saturday, May 31 at Purdue's Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex.
And on Sunday, June 1, Hughes hopes to wake up to his dream. He hopes that the morning after that final round will find him waking up a champion.
That Alabama is contending for a national title with Hughes one of the five golfers in the lineup might have been a surprise a year and a half ago. A redshirt his true freshman year in 2004-05, Hughes had only played in three collegiate tournaments prior to this season, and he competed not with the team but as an individual in one of those. But beginning last summer, it all suddenly clicked. He not only qualified for the U.S. Amateur but won the qualifier at Capital City's Crabapple Course in Woodstock, Ga., among one of the toughest fields, and from there he continued the roll.
"I've learned a lot the last three years I've been here, and I feel like I've gotten a lot better. And I feel like the guys around me have made me better and the competition we have here has made me better," said Hughes, a redshirt junior who has played in eight of Alabama's 11 stroke play tournaments this season. "I kind of understood my place when I came here. I came in with Mark Harrell and Gator Todd and they immediately played and I redshirted. I understood my place, and, if I didn't, I was definitely put in my place. Nothing bad, but I realized where I stood and that I had to get better. And I'm proud that I've gotten my opportunity now."
Getting to this point, to become one of the five who made history at Alabama by winning its first Southeastern Conference Championship in 29 years and to have been among Alabama's lineup in five of its six wins this season did not come without its hurdles over the years. Hughes admits that twice he was halfway to Tide head coach Jay Seawell's house to tell his coach he was going to quit the team. But each time, he turned the car around.
"You play well, you get beat. And you play bad and you feel like you're so far away from where you think you can be. Golf is so difficult. You can feel like you're doing everything right and your scores don't appear the way you want them to," said Hughes who Alabama has counted 23 of his 24 rounds this season. "But to the guys around me's credit and to the coach's credit, even when I didn't believe in myself, they all believed in me. So I just continued to work hard, and I continued to learn. I felt like I knew so much about golf when I came to school here, and it's amazing how much I've learned in the last three years, just golf IQ. It's been tough, but it's definitely made this year a lot sweeter, knowing what I've gone through to get here. I think deep down, I knew I wanted to play for Jay Seawell, and this university was really important to me. I just had to convince myself that if I keep doing what I was doing, I was going to get a chance. And I was fortunate enough that I took that chance and played well when I got the opportunities. I pinch myself everyday that here I am going to play for the national championship."
Hughes credits his coach for his improvement. "I kind of realized I had the raw physical ability, but Coach Seawell has taught us so much. He teaches you how to play the game, how to work the golf course, how to stay in the moment, how to think clearly. For me, all those things finally came together."
Golf has taken the 2004 Georgia AAAA medalist and Dalton High 2004 team champion literally coast to coast. Last summer alone, golf allowed Hughes to experience two extremes. He caddied for his fellow Georgian and teammate Harrell when Harrell played in the U.S. Open. And then later in the summer, Hughes played in the U.S. Amateur. Both events proved to be immeasurable teachers.
"When you're in those situations, like caddying for Mark, you just try to be a sponge. I tried to watch everybody around me. I learned a lot from Mark," said Hughes. "Mark's an unbelievable player. He has a great attitude on the golf course. He knows how to get around a golf course and it was a very difficult golf course. He missed the cut by a shot. I learned a lot from him, picking his brain as he played and watching other guys. And playing in the U.S. Am, everybody says it's hard to make it into match play the first time, and I understand why. It is a major. Jack Nicklaus includes winning the U.S. Amateur as one of his majors. I didn't play well, but I did have a good time, and I learned so much from it."
Hughes says he's learned from playing alongside all of his Alabama teammates. This is one deep team. Alabama won a school record six team tournament championships this season--with five different lineups. Because the team is so deep in talent, Seawell held qualifiers for spots throughout the season. If you won a tournament or placed among the top 10, you got exemptions but the other spots were up for grabs.
Hughes claims the qualifiers were at times more intense than actual competition, so strong is the talent and drive on the Tide's golf team.
"They were stressful. They were hard. I know in the fall a lot of times we'd get through a qualifier, and we'd go to a tournament and we'd be exhausted from the battles at home to go," said Hughes.
A great example of Alabama's depth lies in who was left behind. Gator Todd is not among the lineup. He was first team All-SEC in 2007. Of the five UA golfers in West Lafayette this week, the tiniest of fractions separate four of them in their scoring averages. Michael Thompson leads the SEC in stroke average at 70.70. Harrrell averages 73.03, Mathew Swan 73.07, Hughes 73.17 and Joseph Sykora 73.30. Todd played in seven tournaments this season, helping Alabama win three of those. His average is 74.43.
"Gator (Todd) is an unbelievable player," said Hughes. "I wish we could take eight guys on a trip. We all get along great. I think a lot of our success this postseason has come in the way he's handled that situation. That's a very tough situation. It's one thing for somebody not to play much in two or three years and then finally get to play. I had to deal with watching guys leave and go to tournaments before, but I'd never experienced it before, so I didn't know what I was missing. Here he is, he's played three and a half years and he has been a huge part of this golf program's success, and has to watch us leave. I give him so much credit. He handled it like a man. I have so much respect for Gator. We wouldn't be where we are without him. He has one of the greatest work ethics on this team, and we've all drawn from him. I think our depth is one of our strengths, and I think it's something people all around the country realize: `When these guys get to a tournament, they're battle tested and ready to go."
And this is a team that Hughes says is successful not only because they are battle tested but because they have the kind of chemistry it takes to win.
"We're all a little bit different," said Hughes. "Starting from the top with Coach (Seawell) and (assistant coach) Scott (Limbaugh). They're fine men that I want to be like. They are guys who lead by example, and they've recruited guys that are good young men, from good parents. We all get along great. But then we all have our own characteristics and personalities that we all feed off of. Michael is the professional. Joseph is the brainiac, the analytical one. Swan is a junior, but he's still the youngest guy on the team, kind of the young kid, the young gun we call him, who has a lot of raw talent and is really good. I'm kind of the newcomer, the late bloomer. I don't know what Mark is. Mark's just kind of like the old man. He's just been around forever. He's played in more tournaments than anybody in the history of Alabama. All of those things just complement one another. And, really, on and off the golf course, we just have a great time. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing."
And come next Sunday morning, Hughes is hoping that chemistry will have mixed to produce one great reaction.
"That could be a really neat day, June 1, my birthday, the day after the national championship," said Hughes. "That's something I noticed about a year and a half ago. Who knows? This is the best chance I'll ever have of winning the national championship. It's probably the best chance--and I don't want to step on anybody's toes because there have been a lot of great players and great teams who have played golf at Alabama--but from top to bottom, this is the best team that has ever played at Alabama. This is our best chance to win. So that could be a really fun day. We'll see."
Players Mentioned
