Mark Hubbard: “My demon is my inner critic”

10-year PGA pro from Denver opens up about the mental side of the game

By Jim Bebbington

PGA Pro Mark Hubbard, who grew up in Denver, is coming off his two highest-earning seasons in professional golf and spoke in depth last week about how the mental side of the game is the one he is working the hardest on.

Hubbard and sports psychologist Gen Fulton, a 2004 graduate of the University of Colorado, did an hour-long Instagram Live interview and went in-depth on Hubbard’s mental approach to the game.

Hubbard is one of the best golfers in the world and is ranked in the top 70 of all PGA Tour pros. The past two seasons he has earned nearly $3 million each year, and last season he started and finished strong, which he attributed in part to his new habits of meditation and staying ‘present’ while on the course.

Hubbard finished in 3^rd place in his second to last tournament, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, the week before Thanksgiving. At Pebble Beach last February he also finished 3^rd in the rain-shortened tournament won by Coloradan Wyndham Clark.

In between, he told Fulton he worked all season to keep his mind clear of past failures, or successes, and focus instead on each shot in the moment.

“My demon is my inner critic; I’m very nice to volunteers I don’t take it out on my caddy but I’m historically not super nice to myself when things aren’t going well,” he said. “I am my biggest critic on the inside and that’s the work I’ve been doing the most on is trying to be more kinder with myself and trying to leave the golf course happier regardless of what I shot.”

He said that at the end of the 2023 season, he was so tired of golf he wanted to throw his clubs in a lake. This year, because of his meditation and new focus, he stayed engaged all the way to the end.

“The way I finished this season I had maybe the best tournament of the year in my second to last tournament (Bermuda),” he said. “When I walked off the 18^th hole in Sea Island last year (2023) I was devastated and felt like a complete failure. This year I finished two spots higher but essentially the same place but walked off feeling great about myself and feeling I had made a lot of strides and feeling proud of myself.”

He described two tactics he uses to stay in the moment.

One is a form of meditation, he said, that takes two minutes and which he’ll do on a tee box while waiting to hit: the 5,4,3,2,1 technique.

He said he begins focused breathing then looks for five things he can see, then closes his eyes and focuses on four things he can hear, three he can feel, two he can smell and one he can taste.

“It gets me back in the moment if I’m truly committed to that and not thinking about the three putt I just had,” he said.

The other technique that paid immediate dividends was committing to thinking one positive thought before each swing. He deployed that during a 36-hole U.S. Open qualifying tournament on June 3 at Cherry Hill Club in Ontario, Canada.

“What I found when the round went by I was over the ball thinking  ‘ok you’re a great putter’ but that lasted only about six holes,” he said. “Then it became ‘you’re a good dad; you’re a good friend’ and they had nothing to do with golf at all. There is definitely something to do that.”

He won the qualifier by three strokes and advanced to the U.S. Open later in June, where he made the cut and finished T50.

Fulton told Hubbard that even now he talks less than neutrally about being able to manage his reactions, and she him to be proud of his progress.

“You’re kind of judging yourself,” she told him. “You’re human Mark. “Just because you’re one of the best golfers in the world doesn’t mean you’re not going to experience a whole spectrum of emotions. It’s all about the recovery.”

Hubbard is scheduled to begin his 2025 campaign this weekend at the Sony Open in Hawaii.

Hubbard’s full discussion with Fulton can be seen here.

 

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