Mackenzie Hughes Withdraws From Cognizant Classic Days After Blasting PGA Tour’s Worrying Business Model

Cognizant Classic field will be without one more player from the top 100. PGA Tour Communications tweeted that Mackenzie Hughes, 33, has withdrawn from the event. In his place, Patrick Fishburn will join the 144-man field headlined by Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tom Kim, Min Woo Lee, and Shane Lowry. 

There were no specific reasons given for Hughes’s withdrawal. Notably, last year too, Hughes was not part of the event, then known as the Honda Classic. However, the Canadian International has teed up here six times before. In his last outing in 2022, the two-time PGA Tour winner was tied for the 48th spot on the leaderboard. His best performance on the PGA National’s The Champion Course came in 2020, when he finished a close second behind Sunjae Im.

Hughes has played five events this year, with his best performance coming at the season-opener, The Sentry. The 33-year-old netted a top-25 finish at Kapalua Plantation Course. Mackenzie Hughes missed the cut at his last outing at the Mexico Open. The 33-year-old most recently came into the news for his candid commentary on the current state of the PGA Tour during the CBS walk-and-talk at the Genesis Invitational. 

Hughes, a member of the Tour Policy Board, has spoken freely on the Tour’s business model before as well. During the Sentry, where he got through because of Jon Rahm, Hughes floated within the top 50 at the FedEx Cup ranking after the Spaniard left for LIV. Hughes lamented that the Tour has lost focus on the bigger picture. 

“2019 was, like, 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. Fans also, I think, are left wondering, Do guys even love playing golf anymore, or are they all just concerned about money?” Hughes said in January. The Kent State University alum doubled down on that a month later in Riviera.

Mackenzie Hughes feels they have lost their mass appeal

At the Genesis Invitational, legendary broadcaster Jim Nantz harked back to Hughes’s comments at the Sentry. The Canadian, then on the greens of par-4 15th, reiterated, “I just think that it’s unfortunate where we are in the game right now, where it seems that it’s all about the money and it’s all about, ‘how much money can I make?’ I think we lost the spirit of the game in the process, and it was just never the reason I played on the PGA Tour.”

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Rather, it’s the chance to compete against the top pros that drew him Stateside. But LIV Golf has taken a chunk of the top pros away from Jay Monahan’s armory. To counter that, Monahan & Co. has come up with the Signature event with elevated purses. Something that Mackenzie Hughes feels is unsustainable in the long run.

“Now we’re in a place where I think fans are just generally fed up with it, to be honest, and those are the people that drive our sport. I’d love to be able to appeal to the masses a lot more. The way we’re headed right now is not it,” the 33-year-old concluded. Not just fans, but even sponsors were unhappy as well.

In fact, Cognizant became the title sponsor of the Palm Beach Gardens event only after Honda, a partner of four decades, left last year. The Honda Classic used to draw some of the biggest names on the field. It has watered down to a weaker field in the last few years. Honda, along with Wells Fargo, bore the brunt of what Mackenzie Hughes called the Tour’s unreasonable demand of the sponsors. The Cognizant Classic kicks off on February 29 and marks the PGA Tour’s Florida Swing, where the Tour will stay in the Sunshine State for four weeks.

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