SAN DIEGO — When PGA Tour player Mark Hubbard flew from the Farmers Insurance Open to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in late January, he peered out the window at the scorched earth below.

Hubbard’s bewildered eyes locked on Pacific Palisades, a Los Angeles community reshaped by flames.

What he saw: a hellscape.

“It didn’t look real,” Hubbard said Thursday after shooting 3-over in the first round of the soggy Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines. “It looked like a war zone. Complete and total rubble.”

That fire and others in the Los Angeles area reverberated to San Diego, which stepped in to host the $20 million tournament hosted by golf icon Tiger Woods.

No golfing group, though, was more impacted than that of Hubbard.

His extended family lost three homes in the Palisades area, while two others were damaged. One family. Five homes.

Hearts and lives, fears, memories and uncertainties knotted in a jumble of emotions. Golf is the connective tissue, but nowhere close to the most important bridge.

“I watched family not know where they were going to live in a week,” Hubbard said. “So it puts things in perspective. It makes a three-putt bogey seem pretty stupid and nothing to get upset about because I have a place to live.

“It teaches you that you can’t take anything for granted.”

Hubbard, the 104th-ranked golfer in the world in his 237th PGA Tour event, is not caught up in what numbers say. The images of the fires and jarring fallout for his family remain vivid, however.

The house of his brother and music industry executive Nathan sits about 4 1/2 miles to the west of Riviera Country Club, which hosted the Genesis 60 times dating to 1929.

It would have been 61 before Mother Nature demanded a mulligan.

“There was like a bubble,” Hubbard said. “On one side of the house, everything was gone. On the other side, everything was gone. It was the last one standing.

“It literally looks like the house on Pompei. It’s crazy.”

The Los Angeles fires claimed a reported 29 lives and destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and structures, according to reports. The tragedy ruthlessly tested Hubbard and his family.

From the first signs of flames to the heartbreaking aftermath, the terrifying reality of the situation shifted.

“When it started, it’s up there in the hills,” said Hubbard, motioning into the distance. “We thought it would have to burn through billions of dollars worth of homes to get to (our family). There’s no way that’s going to happen.

“Then it was like, ‘Oh, this is really happening.’ ”

Time moved slowly.

“It’s total belief,” he said. “It’s utter shock.”

When Hubbard played in The American Express, held in the desert stop of La Quinta, nearly 20 family members rocked by the fires scrambled for lodging.

There was huge demand. There was price gouging.

Two sets of parents and merged families with kids made the six-bedroom rental seem like an episode of “The Waltons.”

“They didn’t have anywhere to go, so they were all in one house,” Hubbard said. “It was a challenge.”

The long-term scars are just now sinking in.

The home of the ex-wife of Mark’s brother, where his kids stayed, represents irreplaceable chapters. The true cost is not walls and stairs and structure.

It’s trophies, photos and the things that now exist only in memories.

“That’s where the kids basically kept all of (Nathan’s) stuff,” Mark said. “They built that house from the ground up when they were still married, when they first had kids. All the stuff from their entire lives. Everything they’ve ever drawn, everything they made in school, the things that can’t be replaced.

“The money can be replaced. The other stuff can’t. That’s been the hardest part.”

Hubbard showed admirable resilience on the golf course, too. After three bogeys in the first five holes of a waterlogged opening round, he bounced back with back-to-back birdies on his eighth and ninth holes of the day.

On a day when just 13 of 72 players finished under par, survival ruled the chilled day.

A family touched by tragedy, but seeing brighter days ahead.

“Everybody all used to live in the same area (of Pacific Palisades), a little community within a couple of miles,” Hubbard said. “Now one of them is maybe moving to New Jersey. One of them is already up in San Mateo. It’s almost like the end of an era. That’s the saddest part.

“But I’m lucky because I have a place to live.”

From burnt ground comes rebirth.

Fire stories add perspective to Genesis Invitational

To get a painful inkling of how lives are emotionally uprooted and hearts bruised during wildfires, talk to retired Cal Fire battalion chief Mike Lopez.

Lopez, one of many honored at the Genesis Invitational for their work during the recent fires in Los Angeles, was part of a group that handed out an estimated $2.2 million in gift cards from Door Dash, Uber Eats, Postmates and more in nine days.

He filled the same role during the deadly Camp Fire that wiped out the town of Paradise in November 2018.

“I remember a lady coming up to me and saying, ‘Can I talk to you for a second? Is there any way we can go to my house? I’m pretty sure it burned down,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘They’re not letting anybody up there.’ She said, ‘I really want to go up there. Two years ago, my son died. And last year, my husband died. Their ashes were up on the mantle. I just want to scoop up some ash before the rains come.’

“What do you do? What do you say to that person?”

There’s nothing to say, so you help where you can.

— Bryce Miller

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