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WGC BRIDGESTONE INVITATIONALJuly 31, 2014Ryan MooreAKRON, OHIO LAURA NEAL: Ryan, thanks for joining us. Sorry we weren't super prepped for you coming in. Congrats. A nice bogey‑free 65, which is the lowest round for you at Firestone. Talk about what was going on out there. RYAN MOORE: I drove it really well all day. As long as you're on the fairways here, you can attack the pins. You can hit‑‑ be aggressive just because the greens are somewhat receptive. Pretty much, that was kind of my key. I was on the fairway and just gave myself some good looks at the pins, and I was able to give myself a lot of really good chances. Actually, quite a few I didn't convert on. I wouldn't say I putted great today, but threw in a couple of chip‑ins on the back side, which definitely is a nice bonus. Q. How much interaction did you have with Tom at the British Open? And in any way, shape, or form, does it feel like you're auditioning or in some kind of race to solidify a place so that you don't have to depend on someone's judgment call? RYAN MOORE: I had a little bit of interaction there. I was just sitting in there having lunch one day with me and my caddie, and he came and sat at the table with me and joined us. We had a chat there a while and definitely about some Ryder Cup stuff. He knows I'm close and kind of on the verge. He told me he knows I had been playing some good golf. For me, it's I got to earn a spot, and I know it. That's how I'm looking at it. I got two more weeks to do that. So there's no sense of urgency. There's nothing‑‑ like that's not motivating my golf or my play right now. I simply want to play good golf to play good golf. At the end of the day, if that's good enough to make the team, then great. If it's not, then I tried my hardest. Q. A quick follow. When you hear those words from Tom Watson, does that make you feel more at ease? What is it like to hear that from him? RYAN MOORE: Well, it's nice to know you're on the radar at least. Sometimes when you sit in that kind of middle range of you're not a big‑name player and you're in that 13 to 18 range, you don't know if anybody's really even noticing that you're there. Obviously, you're one good tournament away from being right in the mix or potentially locking in a spot in that position. So it's nice to know that I'm on the radar. Like I said, in the end, I know I have to earn a spot. If that happens, great. Q. What day was that at The Open? RYAN MOORE: I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday of practice day. Q. And your previous exchanges with Tom have been what? RYAN MOORE: I've seen him a couple of times throughout the year. He's been on the range a couple of times. I know he's played a couple of events, but I wasn't at any of those events. I saw him at Memorial, when we had our fitting. Just a couple of times, a couple of interactions throughout the year. Q. Silly question, but given the fact you won a couple of times on tour, your amateur career, he should know who you are, right? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, Tom knows who I am. I played in the Masters with him two years ago, last year. So I played with him the first two rounds. So that was actually a great experience. It was fun to get to play with him in those circumstances. Yeah, he knows. Q. Secondly, you mentioned earlier that you feel like you have to be in the 9 to make the team, that you wouldn't necessarily be picked. RYAN MOORE: Yeah. Q. But what about the dynamics of the way the standings look now, where there's potentially‑‑ and we'll see how it shakes out, but there could be a number of guys who have never been on a Ryder Cup team kind of in that 10‑ish to 15 or 16 spot. RYAN MOORE: That's just how I'm looking at it. I'm making it simple on myself and in my mind that I have to earn a spot. I don't want to rely on anything like that, and I would be very surprised if I got a pick. I would be flattered. That would be the greatest thing ever, but that's just something I'm not trying to think about or rely on. If I play good golf these next couple of weeks, I can definitely get up there and earn it. Q. Take us through your round a little bit. You said you chipped in. Where did you chip in? RYAN MOORE: I chipped in on 5, the par 3. I came up just a little short and just had a really nice kind of straightforward chip there. It was one of those ones it was in all the way. And then I chipped in on 8, and it might have been the easiest chip I've had in my career. I don't know why, but I was like 15 feet away from the hole, just flat, in the first cut of rough. It was just one of those ones that I wasn't necessarily thinking, yeah, I'm going to chip this in, but there was a pretty good chance of making that one, and I did. So, obviously, that's a huge bonus on my round. Q. You didn't pump your fist on that one? RYAN MOORE: No, not on Thursday with about seven people watching us. Not a fist pump. Q. Going back to the Ryder Cup, you've sort of echoed the same refrain as a lot of guys who are trying to make the team, not thinking about it, just trying to play good golf and everything will work itself out. Are we overstating it too much? If you're not thinking about it, should we be thinking about it as much as we are? RYAN MOORE: No, that's your job. You have to think about it and write about it and make it interesting and exciting. For me, it's‑‑ I mean, the reason I think, as far as not getting picked, I've never played on a team before. I haven't won a major. I haven't‑‑ some of that big‑time stuff that I think a captain's going to think about and look at as far as making a pick. There's some very great veteran players that are outside the number right now that probably will get picked. So that's kind of why it's about the farthest thing from my mind. It's just simply I've got two chances to go play good and hope I can get it done. Q. Is it kind of weird, as we're getting down to the last two weeks, that Tom's got three picks, and he might have to use two of them on Tiger and Phil? RYAN MOORE: That's golf. It's certainly surprising, but it's golf. It doesn't care who you are. You've got to step out and go hit good shots and go play good. That's just all there is to it. They both obviously just haven't been on top of their game this year. Wouldn't surprise me if they both played fantastic the next couple of weeks. That's just the kind of golfers they are. They seem to do it when they need it and when it matters. If that happens, then he might not have to. Q. Ryan, golf is also usually very cut and dried. What your score is what you've shot. There's no gray area. So the whole idea of these captain's picks, is it just an odd thing to wrap your mind around that all of a sudden it isn't cut and dried? RYAN MOORE: Yeah. That's why I just don't want to worry about it or think about it. It's not up to me. There's one way that is up to me, and that's what I'm trying to do. The other one isn't, and I have absolutely no say in the matter. It's going to be what he feels is best for his team, period. I'm not going to blame him for anybody he wants to choose. He's the captain. He gets to do what he wants. Like I said, I'd love to be on the team. I'd love to have that experience, but I've got two weeks to try and lock that in and make it happen. Q. Do you watch the Ryder Cup on TV? RYAN MOORE: Some of it sometimes. It depends. It depends on where I am. If I'm up in my cabin up in the woods, no, I don't have TV. If I don't play this year, that's probably where I would be. Q. So no? RYAN MOORE: But in the past, yeah, absolutely. I'll watch it. I'll catch it on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I like watching golf. I'm not one of those people that doesn't watch it ever on the weekends. It's something I always did with my dad and something I still enjoy doing. I like watching it. Q. Did you watch the Presidents Cup on TV? RYAN MOORE: I actually didn't. I'm not sure what I was doing last year. I didn't watch hardly any of that last year. I was busy for some reason. I'm not sure what exactly. Q. Maybe with the baby? RYAN MOORE: Maybe. Probably had something to do with it. He keeps me pretty busy. Q. Ryan, back to this lunch with Tom. So he sits down and you're talking. Are you mostly listening? Or do you make it clear to him how eager you are to be on the team? Do you even feel the need to do that? What is the dynamic of that conversation? RYAN MOORE: I mean, I didn't‑‑ yeah. For me, it was I honestly just asked him questions. I knew he had just been up to the golf course, and I asked him about the golf course to ask him what he thought of it, what it was like, what he thinks it's going to play like. He made it very clear to me he thought the putting is going to be‑‑ it's always very important in the Ryder Cup, but he thought this didn't seem like an extremely difficult golf course tee to green, and you're definitely going to have to make some putts and make birdies. That's kind of the assessment I've heard from quite a few people. As far as‑‑ I think he knows, obviously. I'm eager, and everyone wants to be on the team. That's fairly obvious. I'm not trying to go out of my way and let him know that, no. Clearly, I want to be on the team, and I want to represent my country. We've got a couple more weeks to see if that can happen. LAURA NEAL: Ryan, thanks so much for your time. Good luck the rest of the week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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