Plenty of reasons to smile

Published 11:51 pm Thursday, June 19, 2008

It’s hard to imagine Matt Hughes having a bad day.

In conversation, the former Dalton High golfer — he’ll be a senior at the University of Alabama this fall — is bright and chipper, the kind of person whose tone makes it clear he’s often smiling, even if that talk takes place over a phone line.

But the challenges of Hughes’ chosen sport have long had a way of downgrading even the sunniest of dispositions, and when he struggled during the first half of his career with the Crimson Tide, his optimism was tested at times.

Redshirted his first year in Tuscaloosa, Hughes struggled to qualify for competition spots as a freshman and sophomore and often found himself sitting at home while the team traveled to weekend tournaments.

Needless to say, that was not fun — especially when Hughes was putting in the same work as his teammates, yet not seeing the same results. The 15- to 18-hour class loads, 25 hours of practice and three to four days of workouts each week just weren’t adding up at the time.

“I had some tough times my freshman and sophomore year because of how bad I was playing golf,” Hughes, 23, said. “I was almost trying too hard and I shot some pretty bad rounds my first two years. But I had coaches who believed in me and guys who were pulling for me.

“That made having a good year this year — and, hopefully, a good year next year — a little bit sweeter.”

For Hughes, the turnaround started last summer, when he won a U.S. Amateur qualifier at The Capital City Club’s Crabapple course in late July. That led directly to his participation in early tournaments with the Tide in the fall season — coach Jay Seawell uses some summer performances as qualifiers — including a trip back home for the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic, the annual event held at The Farm Golf Club in Rocky Face each September.

And last year’s tourney, won by Alabama for one of the team’s program-record six championships during the 2007-08 season, instantly became a highlight of his golf career.

After rounds of 74 and 75 over the first two days, Hughes had seven backside birdies as he turned in a 5-under par 67 to help the Tide into a playoff with South Carolina. His final stroke in that round was an impressive chip-and-roll shot made from some 10 feet below and out of sight of the cup on the elevated green on No. 18.

Along with teammate Gator Todd, Hughes birdied the first playoff hole and Alabama beat South Carolina — which had a seven-shot lead entering that Sunday’s final round — to win its second straight Classic championship. But this was the first in which Hughes played a part.

“It was pretty special to do that in front of a bunch of my family and friends,” Hughes said. “I probably had 40 or 50 people watching me and it was a fun day.”

It was through the Classic that Hughes first met Seawell. At the time the coach at highly-ranked Augusta State, Seawell’s team was hosted by Hughes’ aunt and uncle one year and Hughes’ own parents the next, joining them for a family dinner.

For a kid who spent his summers cavorting on the course at Dalton Golf and Country Club and dreaming of playing at a higher level someday, meeting a real deal college golf coach and his players was something special.

“I was starstruck,” said Hughes, who was 15 at the time. “This was the No. 2 team in the country.”

Seawell recalled Hughes being inquisitive.

“I could tell he was a guy who loved golf,” said Seawell, who took over the Tide prior to the 2002-03 season.

“He was interested in talking to our players and he seemed excited to be around us. I did pick up on that.”

A few years later, as Seawell began the tough task of building Alabama into a serious national contender, he picked up on Hughes again.

Hughes’ success with Dalton High — where he was a member of the varsity squad all four years and helped lead the Catamounts to a region title each of those seasons — gained him attention on several colleges’ recruiting watches, including Alabama.

Seawell eventually caught up with Hughes during the summer junior golf season, watching him at the Future Masters tourney in Dothan, Ala.

“I was there to watch a bunch of people and he was not at the top of the list, to be honest,” Seawell said. “But he was someone we were recruiting and I wanted to watch him play. He drove to the first green (on a par 4) — I remember that. He went up the list pretty quickly after that.”

Despite his success in high school, it wasn’t until the final day of his career with the Cats that Hughes won a tourney for the first time. With a 3-under par 69 in the Class 4A boys state tournament at Fields Ferry Golf Course in Calhoun, Hughes shook that monkey and helped Dalton win its eighth state title in program history.

But long before he had such a stellar round on a day when the Cats contributed enough strong scores to finish at 292 in a six-play, four-count format, he was helping steer the ship.

“Matt was a born leader,” Cats golf coach Chad Jordan said. “When he came up as a freshman, you could see that there was something special about him. He was solid mentally as well as physically with his game, and on top of that he had great character. He was without a doubt a huge asset to our team.”

Now he’s an asset for a Tide team on the rise. Alabama won just its second SEC championship this past spring and its first since 1979, another sign that Seawell’s effort to transform the program is working. The team was sixth in its NCAA Regional and 13th at the NCAA Championships.

Hughes, part of Seawell’s second recruiting class, said he bought in from the beginning, believing that change was possible even where there wasn’t much past success to build on.

“That will be a story I’ll tell for a long time,” Hughes said. “The day I signed my scholarship, I came home and got on the computer. Alabama was ranked 98th in the country … A lot of guys (recruited by) coach Seawell didn’t believe him and told him no. Now they’re at other schools wishing they were on our team.”

The Tide spent time this year ranked No. 1 in both the Golfweek/Sagarin and Golf World/Nike Golf Division I coaches rankings, finishing in the top spot of the latter poll’s final edition for the season.

But while Hughes showed faith in Alabama, he knows they also showed faith in him, believing one day he’d be able to help carry the load.

Now he’s happy to pay back the place he’s made his home for the past four years.

“I had a great time even when golf wasn’t fun,” Hughes said. “With the guys on the team, I’ve been blessed, because they’re wonderful and I love the University of Alabama.

“I don’t know who told me, but when I was being recruited, they said to make sure even if you weren’t playing a sport, you would enjoy going there. I know I made the right choice.”

No wonder Hughes seems so happy these days.