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DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP

August 27, 2014

Stuart Appleby

NORTON, MASSACHUSETTS

DOUG MILNE: Stuart Appleby, thanks for joining us a few minutes. Making your 6th start here at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Last week came into the Barclays, kind of hovering there on the 100 fence, and lo and behold, 6-under, 65 final round, and you're looking really good all the way through the playoffs this morning, up to No. 19 in the standings. Congratulations on a great week. With that said, just some comments on how you're feeling heading into the week here at TPC Boston.

STUART APPLEBY: This time of the week there's no doubt the position you go into the playoffs is not critical. Certainly what's critical is how you play in I think the first two events. Being the cuts and there's a massive amount of movement and dynamics there. And I haven't really made pushes like happened last week in any of my previous FedExCup playoff events. So I was in a similar position to last year. I was more secure in 2014 than I was '13. But again, hadn't made any moves. Got myself just into here, and this was my final event last year. But if I could play well whenever I wanted, last week would have been good timing, and last week, that's how it panned out. To move up it's certainly given me a large spike in ranking, and it's given me much more of a dream for me to get back to Atlanta to play The TOUR Championship, which enables a lot more golf events for the 15 scheduled for me to select from. And that's been a plan of mine, to get back into the cool crowd. And I still have a bit of work to do yet.

Q. As a guy who shot 59, what did your last week's round feel like?
STUART APPLEBY: To compare the two? Well, I guess I was -- that was my 11th event in the row, the year I won at Greensboro. I was pretty tired. I was playing well. I just wanted to get to the barn. I was ready to finish up. But I definitely felt the juices flowing by the latter part of that round, the last hour and a half of the day I thought I'm in with this, I've got to drive it home as hard as I can, even if that means shooting lower than 60, 59, name it. Whereas I think last week there was a little bit of that -- I had a little bit of that flavor of on the hunt again, got to make birdies. I don't have time to look up and check the leaderboard. I've got to try to go as far as I can, and hopefully not run out of holes, you know. The course was difficult. I left myself a lot of room after a poor first round, I think I was T-90th, and the week came to me from that time on. They had similarities. The crowds were great, different than Greensboro, the inaugural year. But, yeah, it had some more intense feeling about those two rounds with reasonably similar times.

Q. Now that you've got a little bit of a cushion as far as the points standings go, do you think that it might change your strategy once you get on the course on Friday as opposed to if you were 85th or 90th on the points list?
STUART APPLEBY: No, I don't think so. I think I naturally have a comfort zone of what you think attackable flag is. It's different if you've got to have 4-under the last nine holes to make the cut. You might say I'm going to go at everything inside a 7-iron, versus I only did that with 9-irons. I don't think you want to take it out of your comfort zone. I don't think that's quite natural. There's nothing -- you don't have to force your hand the first hole, the first nine holes of this particular -- am I going to be more aggressive? No. I'm going to make sure that I tidy up a few things that I wasn't quite right with last week, if I can. And work on the same things that sort of got my form going a bit more and go through my routine. Nothing really changes, you just try to perfect a couple of tiny things. If you can do the small things more consistently, they become big things, naturally.

Q. You said that you want to find consistency. Maybe what has been the issue with finding that?
STUART APPLEBY: I don't mean like just consistency, Steve Stricker sort of consistency. I'm not trying to shoot out like that or anything. I'd love to play 15 events a year and have 10 top-10s, everyone would dream of that. Consistency for me would just be more -- let's say I play four weeks in a row, I make a cut four weeks in a row, and maybe I have four weeks inside the top-25. That would be consistent for me. I'm not the flushest ball-striker there is, and I don't hit it miles and I don't hit it straight all the time. When I do play well I tend to putt well. That's something I haven't done well for a long time. It was nice that week, to feel the ball rolling. I think I had 23, 24 putts on Sunday. So if you're going to pick one part of your game you want to be consistent, putting would be the run. Putting will outrun anything else in your game, hands down. It will recover an average round, it will dominate a beautiful round. You're not going to hit every shot to inside 10 feet, very rarely. If I was trying to be more consistent I'd love to be consistently a good putter. I'm a decent putter, I've had bouts where I felt like I was the best putter on Tour. My stats show I get the putts going. There's other areas where I hit it short and crooked. I don't hit enough greens. There's other areas. But at my age now, it's how much time, if I was going to allocate one more hour in a day or move one hour in my practice schedule, what would I point it to? Am I best to spend an hour -- for instance my stats, I think, 20 to 25 feet I'm nowhere on the radar, but 15 to 20 I'm okay. There's a small window there difference that do I try and move myself from 150th in 20 to 25 or do I move -- try and get myself back in the top-50 there. How many putts do I have at that length. I think it's sort of an efficiency of movement, and efficiency of practices where I have to -- especially with the family, as well. It's quite easy to spend a lot of time on the range. I'd like to be a little bit more consistent in some of the statistical areas that would show up as making a real difference to my scorecard.

Q. Just last week, what was that like for you to be back in the hunt? Had doubts begun to sink into your mind? Have your goals changed at your age, thinking maybe I can't do it every week anymore or what was your mindset going into that?
STUART APPLEBY: I've definitely felt all of those things. I've certainly had doubts about my future this the game, wondering whether it's worth it. Wondering where was the old guy? Getting all those things -- whatever I used to do, how do you get them all back? My back hasn't been crash hot. And I've lost some swing capabilities in length and strength and other things. But the game just keeps giving you opportunities. It keeps giving you the smallest signals and the smallest signs. And being tuned into knowing those things and working with them or being unbelievably patient or just keeping that pilot light alive. I can do this. That's why anybody can win out of anywhere out of one week. It's not like tennis. There's ten guys that are going to win a tennis tournament at the most. Whereas golf there's 50 guys, a hundred guys. You could have more than one win a year. And in a long career. NFL, three or four years you're done. Golf, you know, you can have a quiet career and it can be 10 years, obviously guys less than that. But it's constantly throwing you opportunities. At the same time I think basically the ones you make, emotionally the opportunities, whatever you think, if it's half full or half empty. And you have to be unbelievably resilient in this game, because it will completely make you doubt yourself. And if you think about that long enough you will completely be on the outside.

Q. What was it like for you to get back in the hunt?
STUART APPLEBY: Last week, I had a first -- it was an average first round, I knew I had to have a good second round. That's not a usual position for me. And I had a good round. I got myself back in the cut. I was working on those things on the range and I got through Saturday and played all right. Sunday gelled. I didn't win the golf tournament. I didn't feel like a win. In some ways, it sort of almost did, because I went from last in the field, effectively, 90th, you know you're a shot out, you're nowhere off the radar, to running down most of the field on the three days. Meant that I was doing a lot of things right. And obviously putting was one of them. I must have been hitting the ball well enough. There's no way putting can hide you for three days with average ball-striking. So it was great confidence. Just nice to know that when the tournament was there to be chased that, yeah, I felt nervous. And I had to really work on controlling my nerves and at the same time I was excited, which was good, because other times I hadn't felt that. It was all good stuff. It is what it is about, elite level golf. It's a different environment. It's an energy in the crowd and the whole lot. But I try to have the attitude of whatever happens, happens. I just want to make sure that I give everything my best chance and give it a shot and I'll be okay with it. Whereas if you're stressed and worried, that is not how you're thinking, and you never get good results from that point of view. Maybe enough shitty thoughts I've had forced me to try to turn everything upside down. And I saw some fruitful results last week.

Q. What kind of reputation does this course have among players as far as what you need to do well to succeed here?
STUART APPLEBY: Well, we've had not much rain around here. If we can get the course firm, this course plays much better with that, I think almost every course does. Very few courses play awesome when it's soft. But this one I think if we can get it to dry out, the greens are in great shape, there's enough slopes, enough positional areas that you need to use in getting those zones. If you're not there, you'll hit nice shots, but nice shots won't be enough. You've got really the best of the best here this week. And you're just not going to get away with what you might get away with in some other regular tournament. It's got the capabilities. The demands that you're going to have to watch out, get your carries exact, your bounces exact. Your positions off the -- so you've got all the things that top players are going to be asking from a golf course to demand a quality finish. I don't think you're going to see lights out, if we can keep this course firm. I think it will be a great test.

Q. Golf you can play your whole life. What's it like to be adjusting your goals as you get older? Football, you're done. Golf you go on forever?
STUART APPLEBY: That's a good question. I readjusted, with a growing family, my priorities have changed. I love this sport, I want to play well. I practice as hard as the next guy. But the sport doesn't taste the same as what it used to, as it did as a 25 or 35 year old. Every ten years, even you guys can say life is not the same. And that's good or bad. Whatever you want to make out of it. I know I'm a veteran on the Tour. Senior Tour is just down the road. I don't feel like that guy. But that's what it is. The Jordan Spieths or whatever, they're ready to push the older guys off the Tour. It's like a cycle. They're ready to move you on, push you on and they're hitting it yea far. So I think all of us -- Kenny Perry is a great example of somebody that played well into his career. Vijay Singh, and Steve Stricker, partly retired, I think a guy in his 40s, we admire a guy to be able to do that, and play golf like he does. But, yeah, we all have different prerogatives. A young guy -- the young boys, Rickie Fowler. He was sort of disappointed in his major performances this year. He had the opportunities, and they didn't come for him. But I think he'll look back and say that was a great stepping-stone that -- he may put himself in major hunts many more times than I have over his career. And I know that you just don't bump into them all the time. And that's why it's hard to win majors. That's something that you're going to have one or two opportunities every year. I want to get back into those opportunities to majors to see if I can catch something on.

DOUG MILNE: Stuart, we appreciate your time. Thank you.
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