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CIMB CLASSIC MEDIA DAYOctober 15, 2014Ryan MooreCHRIS REIMER: This is Chris Reimer, director of communications for the PGA TOUR. We want to welcome our three‑time PGA TOUR champion and obviously the defending champion of the CIMB Classic in Malaysia. I know I speak for a lot of the players on the PGA TOUR that we just can't wait to get back to Kuala Lumpur. It's one of our favorite destinations each year. It's neat for us to be able to branch out and to go out into the world and experience the different cultures that are out there, especially with it being an official PGA TOUR event. I think Ryan really spoke to that after he won last year's event in a playoff victory. Ryan, I'll let you start off by just, if you could, talking quickly about what you look forward to about getting back to Kuala Lumpur and back to Malaysia and defending that title. RYAN MOORE: Well, for me, obviously I won it last year, so it has a great place in my heart as a tournament that means something to me. I love the trip, and I've loved going there every single year. I missed it one year only because my son was born literally the same weekend of the tournament, so I couldn't play that year, but I've played it every other year, and I love going there. Kind of the same thing, I love traveling there. It's a great experience every time. They treat us so well the whole time we're there, and we're so taken care of. It's fun. It's fun to go to a new place and be in a different culture. I love the course and everything about it. Honestly, it's one of my favorite tournaments of the year. CHRIS REIMER: Obviously we want to thank CIMB Group for their hospitality. Q. After you won CIMB last year, what specifically do you like about the tournament and the city itself? RYAN MOORE: You know, I've enjoyed the hospitality is amazing. Kuala Lumpur is a great city. I always have fun there. It's nice staying downtown and seeing different things, experiencing great food and great people. I've really enjoyed the golf course last year, and really just every aspect of it. It's just different. We have our normal events we play on the PGA TOUR, and I've been doing that for 10 years now, and so it's fun to just go to a new place and play new events, and this one has only been around for a few years now, but I think it's getting better and better every single year. Q. Does winning the CIMB title change how you approach the PGA TOUR events for this year? RYAN MOORE: Well, yeah, after winning last year, it's such a great start to your year, this being a part of the official PGA TOUR and FedExCup schedule. I mean, it's so valuable to get off to a great start like I did last year and have that win early, it allowed me to really set up my entire year after that and be able to really pick the tournaments I wanted to play, and it really just helped me set my schedule for the year, just having that great success at this tournament early on in my season. It's kind of making me want to do the same thing this year and focus in on these fall‑‑ well, fall for us, events to start our season, and just want to get off to a great start again. Q. The field this year looks very competitive with the looks of Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. Who do you think would pose the biggest threat in your title defense this year? RYAN MOORE: You know, it's so hard because every week is so competitive. Obviously having some great names like that in the field, they're obviously great players, and they're coming there to try and win a tournament and start their season off and get a PGA TOUR win. But that's what's tough in general playing professional golf at this level. Everyone is so good. Every single person in an event can win the event. For me, I try not to worry about that as much as much as just focus on what I need to do to win the tournament, and I won it last year, so I understand really what it takes, and it's all about me just focusing on what I need to do and prepare and be ready to go play that tournament. Q. How does it feel to come back to Malaysia as defending champion, and how do you feel about your current game? Do you feel confident that maybe you can have another good run at the title this year? RYAN MOORE: You know, I'm excited to come back there as a defending champion. I think it's something special at any event. This is my third PGA TOUR victory and I've been out here for 10 years, so it doesn't happen all the time. It's definitely always a special week. I feel great about my game. I've actually had a few weeks off. I've had some great rest after the end of the FedExCup going into these next few weeks, and I've had some great practice in, and I feel really ready to go. I'm starting this week at the Shriners Hospital tournament which is in Las Vegas, which is where I live, at home for me. I'm playing this week, and then I'll be ready to come down there, and I'm excited. Q. Do you have any personal goals you'd like to achieve maybe in the next one or two seasons? RYAN MOORE: I mean, for me it's about winning. You know, I'm trying to play good, solid, consistent golf at all times, but for me I play golf to be competitive. I mean, that's what I love about it. I love competing at the highest level. Every single week it's just trying to be in contention and have a chance, have a chance to win going into Sunday. I mean, that's what I play golf for. For me over the next couple years, it's just more wins. That's what matters to me, and that's what I'm focusing on, and that's how I choose my tournaments I play and the schedule I pick is based on giving myself the most opportunities to win throughout a season. Q. I've read some things talking about your swing being quite unorthodox. Do you agree that your swing is unorthodox, and could you tell us a bit about that? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I would say visually, especially if you watch my swing from behind, it definitely has its own character I would call it. But I love that about it. It's my swing, and it's been that way my whole life. I think sometimes that's what can make you great sometimes is I own it and that's my swing and that's how it works, and I've never tried to mess with it or change it. Obviously I've been able to win at the highest level of golf on the PGA TOUR, so I have no intention of changing it any time soon. You know, it's more my takeaway. My backswing is what would be viewed as unorthodox. Fortunately the most important thing in the golf swing is how you move through the ball, not necessarily what you're doing on your backswing, and I move through the ball pretty well, so that works for me. Q. What do you think of the course, and what does it take to score well there, and how does it hold up against other PGA TOUR venues? RYAN MOORE: I really enjoyed it last year. It was our first year having it there, and I thought it was great. It's very demanding off the tee. Tee shots are very, very important on the golf course. It's very narrow, and I don't know what the conditioning is going to be like this year. It changes every single year you play a golf course, but I think the rough was very long last year, so I mean, you really got penalized if you missed the fairway. So for me, I'm a very good driver of the golf ball, so that's a very good thing for me playing a golf course like that because it was so important to be in the fairway to give yourself a chance to score. I mean, really that's almost the most important thing on the golf course was just getting it in the fairway, and it allows you to have reasonable second shots into the greens. And I enjoyed the greens. I putted really well on them last year. I like the type of grass that they are. Yeah, I thought overall it's a very good golf course. It's very similar and comfortable to things we play all year on the PGA TOUR. Q. Could you tell us something about Ryan off the golf course? What do you do to relax? RYAN MOORE: When am I not on the golf course? That's the question. I really‑‑ you know, I don't do much. I'm a pretty low‑key person. I wish I could say I have a ton of hobbies, but golf pretty much take up all my time, and I have a two‑year‑old son, so he takes up a lot of my time, as well. So pretty much if I'm not golfing, I'm trying to hang out and spend as much time with him as I possibly can. Q. Which was your most memorable holiday? RYAN MOORE: Most memorable holiday? You're using that term as like a vacation, like a trip? Obviously a holiday to us, that's like Christmas or something. You know, I have no idea, honestly. One of my favorite trips was actually down in your neck of the woods. I went to Maldives for our honeymoon, my wife and I did, and that was probably one of my‑‑ Q. What year was that? RYAN MOORE: That would have been in 2011. That's probably one of my favorite trips. Q. What aspect of your game are you particularly working on prior to the CIMB Classic? RYAN MOORE: You know, I'm not doing any‑‑ I'm not specifically working on one area. Obviously to win a golf tournament, any golf tournament, you have to do everything well. You have to drive the ball well, hit your irons well, chip, putt, do everything. I've just been practicing everything, really, and just making sure all aspects of my game are sharp. It's a game that definitely challenges your driver. Driving the ball is so important on that golf course, but you have to do everything else well, too, to give yourself an opportunity. In the end, making putts is really what matters for trying to win on the PGA TOUR, so always keeping that sharp. Q. You've been on the TOUR for 10 years. Have you reached a stage where you can pick and choose tournaments that will improve your game, or do you feel that you still need to grind out the results at almost every tournament? RYAN MOORE: No, I've definitely been to that point the last maybe three or four years where I can really choose the tournaments that I want to play in and be able to set my schedule and have the time off I need in between. I've been very fortunate; I've been played for the last few years and been ranked in the top 50 in the World Rankings, which really helps you for getting in all the big tournaments and major championships and all that stuff. You know, it's been nice the last few years to really be able to choose the stuff I would like to play in, and I really think that helps me pick a great schedule to give myself the best chances to win throughout the year. Q. And I suppose moving high up in the rankings and getting in major championships is a good motivation for you. What do you think will get you to the next level and winning majors? RYAN MOORE: You know, it's just keep on doing what I'm doing. Golf is a very complicated sport, and there's so many different parts and so many different aspects. For me it's about just constantly getting a little bit better at every little aspect, whether that's physical conditioning or whether that's the mental side of the game and just thinking your way around the golf course or whether that's physically just working on my golf swing so it repeats better and better and better. I mean, it's just constantly working on little things, not some big major change. It's about just doing all the little things to just make you more consistent. That's what gets you there. Q. You reckon no major changes are needed to your game to move up to the next level, it's just about the small things? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, it's nothing major. To me the way I see it and the way I view it, it's not about making some big change. It's about, yeah, just doing everything I do just a little bit better constantly, and that's what keeps making me get better. Q. You are now in Las Vegas for the Shriners Open, so what are your expectations in terms of performance, and how will that affect your confidence coming into CIMB Classic in two weeks' time? RYAN MOORE: Well, playing well going into another event is always important. This is home for me in Las Vegas, so it's a golf course I play a lot. I won this tournament two years ago, so I have very high expectations for myself at this event. It's one I know I can win. I feel like I'm prepared and ready to go play well this week, and that can definitely create a lot of confidence going into the CIMB Classic. And if I don't play as well this week, then it makes it very clear to me the next week what I need to work on and practice to get ready, be ready to go play another tournament that I've had success at. But yeah, so I have very high expectations for myself. Q. You won a couple of tournaments during your son's birthday, correct? Will you bring him to Malaysia as your charm this year? RYAN MOORE: We thought about it, actually. We have. But the thought of trying to sit a two‑year‑old on an airplane for around 20 hours, my wife and I didn't think we could do it for a week, so I don't think he'll be coming. Q. If you could, just talk about the PGA TOUR expanding into Malaysia, into Asia itself, what that means for the growth of the game in your mind? RYAN MOORE: Well, I think it's great. I think it's expanding our brand and our product and just getting it out there to an area and a region that isn't as exposed to it, I think it's fantastic. We always get great crowds and great support for the event, and that's what it's about. It's about people coming out and enjoying a great event and seeing something that they usually just get to see on TV halfway across the world and it's right there in front of them, and these people that you see all the time, they're right there. I think it's great for the PGA TOUR, and I hope we keep expanding in that way. Q. Kiradech Aphibarnrat contended last year, finished third. You have a lot of players from a lot of international areas contending on the PGA TOUR, but Hideki Matsuyama wins, you've got Guan Tianlang at 15 years old playing in the Masters, he's coming to play in the CIMB Classic. What have you seen from the players in that sector of the world and the growth of the game on that side of the world, and how does that translate to what you feel about the competition in Malaysia, on the Asian Tour, in Japan, in China, in Malaysia? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I mean, obviously they're great golfers. I've been fortunate enough to play with Kiradech a few times, and he's great. I mean, he's absolutely a PGA TOUR caliber golfer, which means there's a lot more guys like him playing down there and being competitive, and it's great to see those guys getting out and being in the events and having success. But it just speaks to golf in general. I mean, it's growing, and everybody is just getting better and better everywhere. It's great to see. That's what we want. This is the industry we're in, and I love to see the game of golf just keep growing and more people get exposed to it and enjoy the game that I love and get to do it for a living. Q. I hope you are looking forward to the heat in this part of the world. RYAN MOORE: It's always nice and warm down there. It's something I always look forward to. CHRIS REIMER: Thanks so much, Ryan, for joining us, and thanks to all the media that are helping to cover and promote the CIMB Classic. Ryan and I really honestly can't wait to come back to Kuala Lumpur and be there in late October, early November for what we feel is one of the best tournaments on the PGA TOUR. Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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