Portland, Ore.----- San Jose State University alum Mark Hubbard was one of 25 golfers on the Korn Ferry Tour to earn a Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour card for the 2019-20 season after tying for 18th place at the WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by KraftHeinz.
Hubbard's finish in Portland allowed him to place ninth among 270 golfers using the Korn Ferry Tour, considered a developmental professional tour for players to earn their way or regain a spot on the PGA Tour. He played in 21 of the 24 regular season tournaments and was the winner of the LECOM Suncoast Classic in Lakewood Ranch, Fla., in February.
"The PGA TOUR is where I feel like I belong. The first time I was up there, I feel like I was good enough to be up there, but I maybe wasn't mentally ready. I didn't know what I was doing, mentally. Now I feel like I know my recipe for success and I'm really excited to get up there and see what I can do with it," Hubbard said after the WinCo Foods Portland Open.
"I probably didn't think I could make it as a professional until college. I was looking at a lot of colleges to play both basketball and golf and didn't think I could be a professional in either, but I loved them both. And then I won the Optimist International event in high school down in Florida, which made me think maybe I could make it in golf. I also knew I couldn't jump that high so basketball would probably not have worked out. But probably my sophomore year of college I started to realize maybe I could do it for a living."
The two-time first team All-Western Athletic Conference (WAC) honoree and 2011 WAC champion turned pro in 2012 and played regularly on the PGA Tour from 2015 through 2017.
"Golfers in general reflect a lot, but this year especially I've reflected on how far I've come from a mental standpoint since 2017 when I lost my PGA TOUR card. The end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 was tough for me. I was in a bad place mentally, sometimes even hating the game. It's one of those things where confidence snowballs in both directions. When it's going well it feels like you'll never come down, and when it's not it feels like you can't get out of the hole. But I definitely have reflected a lot this year on how far I've come," he concluded.