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PGA CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 5, 2014Martin KaymerLOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY KELLY ELBIN: 2010 PGA Champion and 2014 United States Open champion, Martin Kaymer joining us at the 96th PGA Championship. Martin, this will be your seventh PGA Championship victory, obviously at Pinehurst, victory at the PLAYERS. It's been quite a year. How do you feel about your game in general and coming into the final major of the season? MARTIN KAYMER: Yes, our last chance, our last chance to pick up a major win. So obviously it's a big tournament right now but we still have a lot to play for, especially with the FedExCup coming up. After the U.S. Open, I took a little bit of time off and I didn't practice and didn't play as much as before, because I was a little exhausted because it was quite a long run of tournaments for me until the U.S. Open. So then I didn't practice as much, and you could see a little bit on the results when I played in France, the British Open and last week, it was not the way I wanted it. So I played a lot of golf the last two weeks. I practiced a lot at the Bridgestone. Practiced a lot yesterday and I'm probably going to do a little bit more this afternoon. So I feel good about the game. It's just a matter of trying to find a good way into the tournament. You know, how it feels on Thursday, Friday, I think that's always important, how you start and how it feels. But I enjoy the golf course. It's really nice for me. I enjoy playing those holes, especially the back nine. So I can remember it a little bit from The Ryder Cup, when I was here, but I couldn't remember every single hole. KELLY ELBIN: Thank you. Can you talk just for a second about the 2008 Ryder Cup? You just missed making the team, but Captain Faldo gave you a special invite to join the team and be part of it that week. What was it like to at least be in a Ryder Cup environment? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, when I went on the plane in Germany, I thought it might be very difficult to watch the other guys playing The Ryder Cup. But then when I came here and watched them play in practice rounds, and especially on Friday, I was actually quite happy that I didn't have to play, because I know it would have been too early. I don't think that I would have been up for the challenge already, because I was only a year and a half on Tour, and playing such a big event right away would have been a little bit too much. So that was a fantastic thing that I came here and could watch and observe everything and talk to the caddies and the players and the captains. So like the overview was brilliant. So I learned a lot and it was a huge inspiration for me to make the team in 2010 then. Q. Have you had some trouble with your back and your shoulder and has it affected your performance in recent weeks? MARTIN KAYMER: How do you know about it? Q. Just heard. MARTIN KAYMER: It's just once in awhile, you wake up and you have a little issue here and there. The shoulder was quite surprising for me because I couldn't really hit one normal golf shot until Thursday morning at The Open. So the British Open, my practice rounds were very, very limited. But now, everything is fine. It just came out of nowhere. Like everyone else, once in awhile you wake up and you have something, and that happened to me, unfortunately, the week of The Open. But everything's fine. It's just something that you have to deal with when it comes up, but it's nothing major. Q. I'm curious, from 2011, so I guess that would be three PGA Champions Dinners that you've been to, what's been the best gift that you've received, and what did you give your PGA Champions? MARTIN KAYMER: What I gave? I gave a knife, like a Swiss knife. It was actually my father's idea. My brother and me, we always wanted one when we were young, and I can remember the day we got one from our grandparents, when we were old enough, of course. Actually the best gift, it's a tough one. When Keegan Bradley, when he won, he gave me a hat. Every player he gave a hat from his favorite‑‑ I can't be wrong now‑‑ KELLY ELBIN: Red Sox hat and jersey. MARTIN KAYMER: Was it baseball? Baseball. And that hat fits perfect for my head and every time I tell him when I see him on the range, I need that brand and I need that fit. So I always wear it when I'm out in Munich. Q. You wear it outside? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, it's different. KELLY ELBIN: How often do you wear that hat? MARTIN KAYMER: Every time I'm in Munich, maybe three or four times a year and when I go out for, I don't know, for some shopping or something. Not for dinner of course, but in the city. Q. You're very thoughtful about what it takes to win major championships. From what you've said so far, you haven't practiced as much and you've maybe had some shoulder issues. Absent from that, what does it take to sustain the level of excellence that you need to win a major over time? MARTIN KAYMER: I think that you cannot‑‑ I don't really think that you can plan that much. You know, you can prepare yourself as good as possible for all those big events. But there's always some luck involved, as well; you know, how you feel about the golf course, how you feel those certain days. But playing‑wise, I'm not playing bad obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't have won those two big events. But it's just a matter of finding that momentum fairly early in the tournament. You know, sometimes it's just a very, very small margin that can make a big difference in the end of the rounds and that you can take into the next day again. So when you play those majors, it's not so much about making a lot of birdies. It's just sometimes a save from seven, eight feet for par is so much more important than making a birdie early in the round. Like those momentum things, I think that keeps the round going and that keeps the tournament going and it gives you mentally a lot of confidence. It's small things. But if you like the golf course, it's obviously a huge thing at the end of the day. I'm glad we came here this year and played Valhalla. For me it's a very good golf course and I enjoy playing it. Q. You famously didn't like being No. 1. Rory has just acceded to it for the fifth time. Advice isn't quite the word I mean, but I'm asking is there something that you could say to him about being No. 1? MARTIN KAYMER: Don't really care. That would‑‑ I mean, it doesn't matter at the end of the day. If you focus on being No. 1 in the world, I think you forget about the main goal. The main goal, I believe, or I hope, for him is to win as many golf tournaments as possible and that No. 1 spot is just an outcome. So I think he shouldn't focus too much on the outcome. He should just more focus on the present tournaments that he plays. That's the only advice I can give him, if he needs advice. Doesn't look like it. That's the way I would approach that No. 1 spot. Q. You were one of the stretch of first‑time winners back in 2010 when you won the PGA. This year, you're one of the three guys who won at least the second time in the last three years. How much easier is it to win a major your second time? MARTIN KAYMER: I wouldn't say it's easy. I wouldn't ask the question in that way. It's never easy to win a golf tournament. To win a major, obviously for me, the last nine holes, they were obviously a little bit more comfortable to play in Pinehurst, and if you lead only by one or two shots, usually it's very, very stressful and it takes a lot out of you playing the last nine holes of a major when you have a chance to win. But you can't‑‑ I wouldn't put it in the sentence of easy. Easy, you can't use that word when it comes down to winning a major. It's very difficult and you cannot only describe that you only have to play good golf. It all of a sudden becomes such a long week when you start off well at a tournament and it's going to be long evenings, a lot of talking, a lot of explaining. It's the whole package that makes it very, very difficult. So you can't really say easy to any kind of‑‑ that major win. Q. Pretty sure, Martin, Tiger doesn't need your advice either. But what did you think of his game the last week when you guys played two rounds together? MARTIN KAYMER: Yeah, we played the first two rounds together. The first round, the first nine, he hit some amazing shots, like a couple iron shots to tap‑ins. And then he hit some shots, they were fairly far away from the target. There was the second hole when he missed the tee shot left of the third fairway in Firestone, so that's obviously‑‑ yeah, that's way left. But he made four. So I think it's very difficult to describe his game right now. I think he was very unlucky with a lot of putts, as well. What I was very impressed about was the chipping. The way he chipped them was so pure. He just nipped them off the ground. For me, it's probably the best chipping action. It just looks so easy and so much control. Obviously everybody wants him to be back at the golf tournaments. If you win a big tournament without Tiger in the field, you know, you still feel very happy about it, but you want to play against him, and it's nice if he's part of every tournament. He brings a lot of people into it. It has a different flair. And obviously here everybody knows as well, when Tiger's playing in a golf tournament there's more work for you guys, as well, more entertainment and more people. It brings a little bit more into a golf tournament. It's such a shame that he had to pull out last week and I hope, and everybody hopes, that he will come back and play this week. Like what I said, if you win a big tournament, it would be nice if he would be part. On the other hand, I don't know how bad his injury is. It's tough to say. If I had injuries like this, I would probably make really, really sure that I'm healthy, because he's 38 years old, so hopefully he will have another ten, 15 years of competing against the guys on the PGA TOUR, and that he reaches his goal of 18 majors or maybe 19. Q. Can you tell us the state of your game right now? What are the one or two best skills right now that you have, and which ones do you think you need to work on? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, definitely the chipping and pitching I have to work on a little bit. But I'm very happy the way I hit my short irons, like those wedges between 80 and 120 yards the last couple of months has been really nice and worked out very good for me. And the distance control with the irons, I think that's very, very important this week, because the way the golf course is playing right now, it's not going to happen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They put the fans out already, so they are going to dry them out. I think they are going to trick us a little bit until then. So I think the distance control is so far very good this season. I mean, I'm pretty happy the way it is now. It's not quite 100 percent sharp, the game, but it's nice. It's exciting that you can work towards something, how it felt in Pinehurst, how it felt at THE PLAYERS, and I know I'm not very far away. I'm just waiting for that day where it clicks a tiny bit again and then I can play great golf again. Right now I'm playing good but not the way I want to, but it's just a work‑in‑progress. Q. Pardon me if you already answered a question in this vein. What's the difference between achieving and sustaining? MARTIN KAYMER: The difference? Q. And why is that difference so hard. MARTIN KAYMER: Difference? Well, to get somewhere, I think it's a vision, it's a hope that you have. There's a lot of hours, a lot of work that you have to put in in order to get there. Maybe there's a tiny bit of doubt if you're ever going to get there, if we're talking about big goals now. And then all of a sudden you are there. Sometimes it comes a little bit too early, and you didn't expect it to come that early. Then you have to deal with that circumstance for a little bit. You have to try to find a way to handle the whole situation outside of that success. And then I think it's even harder to continue because all of a sudden your expectations has changed. The people around you, the media, the fans, everything, they expect more from you, and then all of a sudden, that transfers to your own pressure a little bit. So maintaining, I think it's a lot more difficult to deal with than really getting to the success or to the achievement. Yeah, so that's why I think it's very, very impressive what Tiger did over so many years to stay No. 1 in the world; if he competes, 50/50 chance that he wins. Same with Adam Scott. I mean, the last two years, every time he's playing a big tournament, at least Top‑10. So it's very impressive. So to maintain that, it takes a lot out of you, but I think the transition is very difficult. The transition is the tough part. Q. You talk about obviously sometimes you get tired from all the obligations and the stress that reaching a goal entails. Do you think there's any part of you that once you've achieved something, gets a little bit bored because the obstacle is no longer there? MARTIN KAYMER: Bored, of what? Q. I guess because once you achieve something, that goal is not necessarily there anymore because you've reached it. Is there any part of you, like an artist maybe? MARTIN KAYMER: Well, it depends on what kind of goal you set for yourself. I think Tiger was very smart in his career. He picked an ultimate goal that he's not going to reach within two or three years. To win 18 majors, minimum, it's a career goal. So there's never going to be any emptiness. I can remember when I won the major in 2010, and then you become No. 1 in the world, all of a sudden you feel like, okay, I won the Order of Merit, I won this, I won that. That's what I wanted. And so then, you ask yourself, What's happening now? So then you need to set new goals. I wouldn't say it was a mistake that I set only goals winning maybe one major or winning the Order of Merit. I maybe should have aimed a little bit higher. But on the other hand, you don't want to expect too much from you. So I think sometimes you should go a little bit higher than you think with the goals, but more long term. I wouldn't go for any goals the next five, six years anymore. I would go more like for the end of my career. Yeah, everybody has some hopes, and I have some hopes how many majors I want to win, how many Ryder Cups I want to be in, how many World Golf Championships I want to win, maybe the FedExCup, those things. But again, you know, there are so many components that they have to work together in order to get there. You can just work along. I have many more goals, but for now I think I set some goals, they are possible, but very, very difficult, because you can't plan on winning the FedExCup. What I said, you can win four majors, you get less points than winning one FedExCup tournament. So you can have a great season but then play only decent in the FedExCup and you still don't win that thing. So you can't plan that. KELLY ELBIN: PGA and U.S. Open Champion, Martin Kaymer, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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