Q. 65 today, excellent round of golf. If we can get some comments, please.
MARK HUBBARD: Just in general? Yeah, it was great. I hit my irons great again. I feel like I actually did a better job with that today in terms of just leaving myself more makeable putts. I've been hitting it close all week, but a lot of them have been kind of in tough spots, downhill, downgrain. That little stretch I went on, pretty much every putt was just dead straight up the hill, so that was really nice.
I was joking last tournament in Napa, I played well on Saturday, as well, and statistically speaking that was my worst day last year. We were at a nice dinner in Napa and my dad was giving me a little bit of s--- about playing well on Saturday, so it kind of fired me up, and I kept that energy today.
Q. Take us through that stretch, 11 through 15, and how good did that feel?
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, it was good. It all started with I think a really, for lack of a better word, just professional play on my second shot into 11. I could have gotten a little aggressive with my 5-wood there and I just decided to hit 4-iron and take the water completely out of play and give myself an easy chip even though I knew I couldn't get it to the green, and just kind of got the momentum rolling from there. Like I said, I was leaving myself in such good spots that they were just easy up-and-downs or easy putts.
It didn't feel as exciting as I'm sure the scorecard looks because it was just kind of -- I was in the right spot every time.
Q. Really good birdie there to close it out, as well.
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, that one felt good. That 5-iron I hit was one of my best swings of the week. I was joking with Sepp walking up there, give me as many back right pins as possible tomorrow. I don't know if I should be saying that. I don't know how the rules crew feels about me. It might be all front left pins tomorrow after they hear this. But yeah, that was a good one for me.
Q. What was your yardage on that one?
MARK HUBBARD: 207 hole. We were, I think, 193 cover the bunker, so we were trying to land it about 200, so I was playing like a 203 shot.
Q. What got going in that stretch from 11 to 15? Did something change?
MARK HUBBARD: No, I hit some good drives down that stretch, and that's the key out here. I've done an excellent job out of the rough this week, but it's really tough to score out of the rough. So I found the fairway on those and hit good drives on 14 and 15, which I haven't necessarily the rest of the week. So that was huge.
But yeah, like I said, I just left it in really easy spots.
Q. Did you kind of feel coming into the week that this could be a good week for you? What was your attitude Tuesday and Wednesday?
MARK HUBBARD: Absolutely not, no. I had last week off. My daughter got my sick, and then accidentally knocked off a kitchen knife off the counter and stabbed me in the foot, so I had a hole in my foot this whole week, and I didn't get to practice at all last week, so I was just kind of coming here trying to get ready for Vegas to be honest.
I think that probably has a lot to do with expectations being low. That being said, I felt incredible about my game for the last six, seven months, so I'm just kind of trying to go with it and keep those expectations low and just try and hit good golf shots.
Q. Beware the injured golfer?
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, sort of something like that, for sure. It's always something like that.
But yeah, all that being said, I feel really good about my game. It's not like this is coming out of nowhere. We've been playing well for a while.
Q. You played well on the Korn Ferry TOUR a little earlier this year. How was it to keep the motivation up and keep the professionalism at a high, even having to, quote-unquote, play down a couple weeks?
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, it sounds bad to say play down because that tour is so competitive. It's the second best tour in the world, but it is a second best tour in the world. There is a huge difference between the course setup out there and the quality of play out here. The guys out there are incredible, but the depth out here is unmatched.
Going down there, you do kind of sometimes feel like, hey, I'm better than these guys, and then to go out there and play well and kind of prove that to yourself, it gives you a ton of confidence for sure.
Q. Is it hard to walk this week or are you fully --
MARK HUBBARD: No, it healed better than I thought. It was on like Tuesday or Wednesday and it was best case scenario, just got me on the toe. I think if it would have got me straight in the foot it could have been worse, and God forbid if it had gotten her. Dad needs to be a little bit more careful of where he puts the knife on the counter and baby-proof our house a little more. She's at that age where she's getting into everything.
Q. How old is she?
MARK HUBBARD: A year and a half.
Q. Is it kind of a little bit beware the injured golfer?
MARK HUBBARD: I don't really think so. I was more just kind of saying I didn't really have high expectations because I didn't really have the week off that I had hoped for. I didn't get the practice in or necessarily the rest because I was a little under the weather.
But I feel great now, so I don't really think there's any of that. I think having that kind of less than stellar off week kind of put me in a position where I was feeling good about my game but I didn't have super high expectations so I wasn't putting a lot of pressure on myself, and I'm going to try and continue to do that tomorrow.
Q. How many days did you go without practicing last week?
MARK HUBBARD: Pretty much the whole week. I putted a little on Friday and then I practiced a little on Saturday or on Sunday before my Broncos played, but that was about it. I'm not a huge range rat, so it's not like I'm out there 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. anyway. I'm usually taking Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe Thursday off anyway. But it was just a little less than normal.
Q. What are you going to pull from tomorrow playing in the final group from past experiences? What do you feel like can help you if you get into tough situations?
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, we talked about it a little bit yesterday. I don't think there's really one thing I'm going to touch on. I think just -- it's just naturally -- it gets easier the more you do it. It's kind of like hitting balls on the range; it's not all the time, just like one thing where you're like, I've figured it out, now I'm good at golf. It's you practice, you eventually slowly get better, and it's a learned skill in my opinion.
I've gotten more opportunities in the last year to kind of get better at that skill, so hopefully it'll pay off tomorrow.
Q. Does what Max has done inspire you in any way, having known him for so long?
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, I mean, I guess. I always love seeing my friends play well, so yeah, watching him at the Presidents Cup was definitely inspiring. I would say probably the most inspiring thing maybe I've ever seen was my buddy Ryan Brehm winning in Puerto Rico last year. We celebrated that so much we missed our flight the next day, so that was the coolest. He had one start or he's going back to Q-school or the Korn Ferry, and he goes out and wins, just crushes that course.
In terms of inspiration that was huge, but I just kind of like to do my own thing, and yeah, I like to see my friends play well, but I don't worry too much about what they're doing.
Q. What does this mean to you, being in the lead going into Sunday here on the PGA TOUR?
MARK HUBBARD: Yeah, it's awesome. Like I said, I didn't have super high expectations coming into the week, so I was really just trying to get ready for Vegas and Japan. To have this opportunity tomorrow, it's awesome. It feels sort of like a gift.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports