PGA Tour Player Misses Registration Deadline After Dropping Phone In Cold Plunge, Monday Qualifies Anyway

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Mark Hubbard was exempt into this week's Procure Championship on the PGA Tour, but after waiting until the last minute to register and suffering some extreme misfortune with his phone, he was put in a rather tough spot.

"Short answer: I missed the commitment deadline Friday by about 23 minutes, had some technical difficulties with my phone. I dropped it into a cold plunge on Thursday," Hubbard said.

Hubbard could have and should have registered well before 24 hours prior to the deadline and had ample time after dropping his phone in some water to get a hold of the PGA Tour in some form or fashion, but that's beside the point. The real story here is Hubbard's actions after the fact.

If Hubbard - who has full status on the PGA Tour - wanted to play in the Procure he would have to Monday qualify, which is exactly what he did.

Mark Hubbard had to Monday qualify into a PGA Tour event when he had no intention of doing so. Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

The 35-year-old teed it up in the Monday qualifier at Yolo Fliers Club and fired a smooth 7-under 65 to earn one of the four available spots into the Procure field.

"I was pretty down in the dumps on Friday, but I feel like I recovered pretty fast and I came out here with a really good head on my shoulders and a good mindset coming into the day. I don’t feel like I would’ve done that even a couple months ago, so I’m pretty proud of myself for that … It’s definitely a learning experience. I hope I don’t do this again, and I almost feel bad taking a spot from somebody, because I should’ve just been in the tournament anyways. It’s a weird situation, but at the end of the day, I can take a lot of positives from it," Hubbard explained on Monday.

A lot of positives indeed. Going from forgetting to register and then dealing with the frustrations of ruining a phone and dealing with that nonsense all us regular folk deal with and then proceeding to shoot 65 in a Monday qualifier you had no intentions of playing in is some big-time stuff.

Hubbard is coming off an extremely strong season on Tour making 21 of 23 cuts that included two Top 10 finishes and another five Top 25 finishes en route to $2.1 million.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.