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RBC CANADIAN OPENJuly 23, 2014David HearnILE BIZARD, QUEBEC THE MODERATOR: Welcome David Hearn to the RBC Canadian Open media center. It's your 12th RBC Canadian Open and you're obviously in some good form having played your first Open Championship last week, coming off a made cut there. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about what the experience was like over in Liverpool. DAVID HEARN: Yeah, for me an awesome experience going over to Great Britain last week. Truly unique type of golf and my first taste with it. For me it was a big learning experience and just felt great to be over there at a championship of that magnitude. The British fans are unique, and they certainly have an appreciation for the game that you don't see a lot of places. It was a great week for me and a lot of fun to play over there. THE MODERATOR: You've got a special announcement coming up, as well, with the Forget‑Me‑Not patch and the Alzheimer's Society and your tournament coming up, so tell us about what that means for you. DAVID HEARN: Yeah, absolutely. We've got a lot of things going on right now. We've got the Golf For Kids campaign going on right now with RBC, which has been a lot of fun this year. I also host a charity event, the David Hearn Golf Classic, the Monday after the Canadian Open, and this year, as for the last three seasons, we've been benefiting the Alzheimer's Society. It's been a real privilege to be involved with that group, and they do such wonderful work. We've managed to grow the event and really raise some good funds. I'm wearing the patch this week to continue to raise awareness for Alzheimer's here in Canada and around the world. THE MODERATOR: Playing in front of Canadian fans this week, the RBC Canadian Open is obviously an important event for Canadian players. Tell us about what it's like playing in front of home country fans this week. DAVID HEARN: Yeah, it's an amazing feeling. Obviously we talk about it every year coming here to the Canadian Open that this is our national championship and we take a lot of pride in playing in that. Obviously being here at Royal Montreal with so much history at this golf club, what it means to the Montreal area and what it means to Canada to be the oldest club in North America, it's such a privilege to be playing a golf course like this for the Canadian Open. I'm very excited to be here. The fans are going to be amazing for the event, as they always are, and it's just exciting to play in front of your hometown‑‑ even though I'm not from Montreal, I'm sure everyone will be warmly received like they are from here. Canadians are proud fans, so we're all going to be doing everything we can to have a great week and see if one of us will be in contention on Sunday and give us a chance at that cup. Q. Did you play this morning? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I just finished. Q. What's your sense of the golf course? You hadn't been here‑‑ obviously now it's a little wet. Will that change things do you think, and what are your overall impressions of the venue? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, like I said, I've been excited to play here at Royal Montreal. I turned pro in 2001. That's the last time the Canadian Open was here and I didn't play in it, so I've been excited to be getting here since. For me this golf course is‑‑ it's very difficult to predict what a winning score is going to be like, obviously the weather and everything like that. But from I see of the golf course there isn't a tremendous amount of rough but there's also a good amount of length to the golf course. The greens are small, and the greens are also tricky enough to where they're going to be tucking some of the pins on these long par‑4s and you're going to have a hard time making birdies whether there's rough or not. I feel like the course is going to be‑‑ obviously with the rain that's going to help scoring. It always does. But I feel like the scoring isn't going to be tremendously low. I feel like there's going to be days where guys get into the golf course, but I think it's going to be difficult to be really low each and every day here. There's enough good tests on the long par‑4s to really‑‑ and it's a par‑70, too. Most par‑70s don't really play that easy. I think the golf course is going to stand up great. Just a little bit of rain. As long as we have good weather the rest of the week, it won't impact scoring that much. It's going to be a great test. Q. How does it suit your game? How do you think it sets up? You seem to play well on difficult, hard golf courses. DAVID HEARN: Yeah, absolutely. I think I do well on golf courses where patience is a premium and where par can be a good score. Going out on the weekend and just shooting a couple under par moves you up the board. I enjoy that type of golf where you have to continually hit fairways and put your ball in the right spot all day long. I'm good at tournaments where you make a lot of birdies, as well, but I really enjoy this type of golf a lot. To me I think the golf course sets up great. It's got nice slopey greens. It's going to be tricky. You're going to have to hole some putts, and you're going to have to keep the ball in play in front of you all day long. That's stuff that I like to do. Q. For yourself it's been a solid year so far, three top 10s on the PGA TOUR, inside the top 80 of the FedExCup. Do you feel like you're getting closer to that kind of breakthrough point? You've had some close moments this year on TOUR. DAVID HEARN: Absolutely. Going back to the John Deere a couple of weeks ago, that was obviously the best performance I've had on the PGA TOUR to date. I had some great feelings getting back there of how well I played a year ago, and to me I've been a little bit surprised that I haven't been in that position since. I feel like my game has been really close and I've been playing well in a lot of the bigger tournaments, but I just haven't gotten over that hurdle yet to get into that winner's circle yet and get back into contention. I feel like my game is really close, and I've shown signs of it this year. I've top‑tenned at THE PLAYERS Championship; that's arguably the best field we play in all year. I played well, like you say, last week at the British, finishing just outside the top 30 there. So any time we tend to play in some good fields, I tend to have good results. I think my game is really close. I just need to get hot on the greens for that week and have a few breaks go my way, and I think I'm not that far off of winning. Q. With the 60‑year drought of a Canadian winner in this Open, for you is that pressure or motivation? DAVID HEARN: You know, I think starting the week, I don't think it's really much of either. I think when you start to play and you get deeper into the tournament and you're in contention‑‑ a couple years ago I was not too far off the lead going into Saturday, and you get out on the golf course on the weekend and you're in the mix of the Canadian Open, that's when you start to feel a lot of those emotions. I think it's motivation. I think a lot of the players, we've got 20 Canadians in the field or thereabouts this week, and we're all very motivated. We want to win the golf tournament just like anybody else. It's difficult to say, but we just haven't had that much opportunities. Mike came close a couple years ago and Adam the year that I was close on the weekend, as well, had a good opportunity. But it's going to happen. I just can't tell you when. I'd love for it to be this week. What a great place it would be to do it here at Royal Montreal. Q. You said that you really wanted to play here, to come play here. What makes it so special, Royal Montreal? DAVID HEARN: Well, I think just the fact that it's the oldest club in North America. I think there's a lot of history and tradition that come around this golf course, and I'd played a couple of years on the PGA TOUR Canada and we played events here in Montreal and I've always heard such great things about the golf course from other members and other people that have played here. I played a lot of junior and amateur golf against Craig Matthew who was a member here. I've just always heard what a great place it is, and it's exciting to be here at this property. I remember watching the Presidents Cup with Mike Weir beating Tiger Woods in 2007, so just a lot of things have kind of built up, and I'm excited to be here, and hopefully I'll have my best game this week and I'll be able to do something fun. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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