|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 31, 2014Billy HorschelNORTON, MASSACHUSETTS DOUG MILNE: Billy Horschel, 4-under, 67 today, Round 3 of the Deutsche Bank Championship. Just a few comments on the round and then we'll take a few questions. BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, played pretty solid today. I had to be patient out there, I didn't hit it nearly as good as I did the first two days, at least in my liking. And I just knew -- if I just kept making pars, not making any mistakes. I knew I was going to get some birdies somewhere in the round and it just happened to be the last two holes. I played really solid. Me being patient today was hopefully a sign of me maturing a little bit and growing up as a golfer. So that's a good sign for me and hopefully I can keep doing it tomorrow. Q. Russell mentioned more than once that people are going to be surprised to see him leading. So two questions for you, do you think people are surprised to see you here and second are you surprised to be in second? BILLY HORSCHEL: I'm not surprised to be here in second. If people are surprised that I'm in second place, then they must not know what kind of person I am. Obviously my season hasn't been anywhere near as good as last year, but I'm a guy that's going to keep working hard, keep grinding until they tell me the season is over and I can't play anymore. If you look at my stats they're not much different than last year, except for one glaring area, and that's just strokes gained putting. And it's not because of any lack of work or times put in. I've put a lot of time in the last couple of months, and it's just now starting to pay off. And at least it's sooner than later. Q. Are you surprised to see Russell there? BILLY HORSCHEL: No, Russell is a good player. I know he hasn't had -- obviously he won Honda, and he's been struggling with his swing. We played together at AT&T the first two rounds, and he was starting to work on a couple of things. And you could see -- we played together at the British, too. And he was struggling there, too. He's a guy who comes from a basketball background who -- he's like a 3-point shooter, he's going to keep shooting, and they're going to start falling sooner than later. That's his kind of mentality. I like that. He's a guy who's never going to give up, keep battling until they tell him he can't play anymore. Q. Given the run he's been on, what does it mean as a competitor when you see Rory's name up that high going into the last day? BILLY HORSCHEL: Rory, what he's done the last couple of months, has been pretty spectacular. Obviously ever since in May when he won the BMW Championship over in Europe. We all know what kind of talent he is. We all know what his ability is and what he can do on the golf course. So we all want the best players to be there when we win or have a chance to win, because it means that much more when we do hold up that trophy at the end of the day. Q. Scoring seemed to be a little bit lower than the first two days. Not as much wind as maybe they forecasted, were there some accessible pins? BILLY HORSCHEL: I think the wind may have not been nearly as bad. At the same time the wind came from the right direction, where it makes No. 2 downwind, No. 7 downwind, 18 downwind, three par 5s that can play very short. It just seems like the greens are still pretty soft. It's funny, because I played the afternoon Pro Am on Thursday and they were really firm. And I came out Friday afternoon and pretty soft. And yesterday afternoon they still didn't have that bounce like they did Thursday afternoon. I guess they're adding some water to them. I saw a guy Friday night and they said they weren't. But that's okay. Like I said, I think the wind is coming from the right direction, which makes the course play a little bit easier. Q. If we do get weather here overnight and it does soften up a little bit, how is the course going to play tomorrow? BILLY HORSCHEL: You know, it just depends on how much rain we get. Obviously we've seen in years past when this course gets quite an amount of rain, it's a shoot out. The greens become mush and it's not much thought process into laying in the ball and having it release. 165 pin, it's 165. It just depends on how much rain we get and what kind of weather. Hopefully we don't get too much and the course stays similar to what it is now, because I think it's playing probably the best it ever has. I've only been here two years, but I've seen it on TV, but I think this is the way it should be played, fast and firm. Q. (Inaudible.) BILLY HORSCHEL: No, I don't even know what my approach is right now, honestly. Honestly my approach is just go out there and play the best round of golf I can. And if it means I'm holding the trophy up tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow night, that's a great thing. It's no different than the mindset I had at Zurich when I won last year. Q. How did you spend last week after missing the cut? Secondly, did you feel like this kind of round was in there? BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah. So I played early Friday and missing the cut I had a chance to go home. And I spent all day Saturday and Sunday at home. And kept my clubs in the travel bag, which is a little unusual for me, especially seeing how bad I played last week. But it wasn't anything that was mechanical, technical, it was more just a mental approach that I changed, thought about some stuff that I've done the last couple of months and why it hasn't turned out better. And sort of just tried to do what I figured out at home this week. And it's nice. I haven't seen my wife in three weeks, we're expecting our first child in a little under four weeks. It's nice. And my wife is a golfer, she played golf at the University of Florida, I was able to bounce a couple of things off her to see what kind of advice she may have. Q. Would you be more specific about sort of what you were trying to figure out? BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, it's simple stuff. I just have been a little too much emotional, too much getting upset at shots that don't turn out, especially if I don't hit a good one. Getting in my own way. Something that I did a good job of getting out of my way last year. And I think the last couple of months I've gotten back in my own way. I played a good stretch of golf, at the Memorial, St. Jude, U.S. Open, Congressional. Played well at British Open, but got on the wrong side of the draw. And ever since then I've got upset at things and haven't been patient enough. I'm sort of learning, slowly, that when -- I can stay calm and not let things affect me. Obviously I get over it, but it carries on during the round that I play better when I can just let things go and not get upset. Q. You're not being as happy with this season as last, what would winning here do for you? BILLY HORSCHEL: Winning here means a lot. It's like Hunter, Hunter last week had probably one of the worst seasons going so far. He wins, and now it could possibly be one of his best seasons. That's sort of the way I'm thinking. The Ping guys, Matt Rollins and Christian Pena, I talked to them about this week, just that kind of mindset, how things can change that fast, and winning tomorrow, obviously gets me to Atlanta and gets me that much closer to winning the FedEx and $10 million. Q. Have you thought about Ryder Cup at all? BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, you know, it's been a little disappointing because I've had several conversations with Tom Watson at the end of last year. We played at Augusta. I think he knows my game a little bit, knows what kind of player I am. And knows that I can bring some emotion. But I really honestly stopped thinking about Ryder Cup after the British Open, not that I was thinking about it at all this year, but after I missed the cut at the British Open, I knew it was pretty much impossible for me to make it automatically, without winning the PGA Championship. If I win tomorrow and Tom wants to pick me, that's great. I would love to be on this Ryder Cup team. I think I can bring a lot of emotion, a lot of energy to the team. I'm not saying the team doesn't have that already, but it brings maybe something different that might have been missing. Like I said, if it happens that he wants to pick me, I'll be ecstatic. Q. (Inaudible.) BILLY HORSCHEL: That's a tough question. Russell is a good player. He's a competitor. It's -- the match is a tough question. Two wins, you know, obviously I know he had a down part in between the two wins. It's something Tom has to look at, it's not my choice. I would look at it but I can't tell you right now if I would put him on the team or not. That's sort of I feel like a sticky question that I could answer badly. Q. Go ahead and try. BILLY HORSCHEL: I don't want to try, because I feel like the comments could come out the wrong way or could not be expressed in the right way in the papers. Q. Do you watch any golf on TV? BILLY HORSCHEL: I do. And I have stopped. I did a good job of that the first six months last year of not watching a lot of The Golf Channel, Golf Central, any kind of golf. And it helped me not worry about things and think about things. And then I sort of got back in that mode of watching, because I thought I could. I love watching. I love watching PGA, LPGA, Senior Tour, Web.com Tour. But I've sort of stopped watching PGA Tour. I watched Web.com, because there's some guys. I try not to watch anymore, it just doesn't do me any good to see how guys play and I get upset, I'm like, man, I want to be there so bad, I want to be in that opportunity, to win a tournament, I want to be where they are. And it's not anything bad, just motivates me, and probably pushes me a little too much over the edge. Q. You're watching the guys that are contending and thinking, I want to be there, I should be there? BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, yeah. There's no jealousy at all. It's nothing like that. It's a motivation factor that it sort of motivates me. If you can be motivated too much, I would think that's what it is with me. I'm just too -- I want it too bad sometimes after seeing guys win. Man, I know I can go head-to-head with that guy or I can compete with that guy, and that's what it comes down to. Not jealousy at all. I think if you're jealous of some guy, you're thinking the wrong way and you need to check yourself in the mirror. Q. Which tournament did you watch last? BILLY HORSCHEL: Probably Greensboro. Like I said, I just made this decision just this past weekend (laughter.) Obviously I could have sat on my couch all Saturday and Sunday and watched golf, because I did nothing. I sat on the couch, I did a couple of things, but it was just a relaxation time. And any other time I would have been watching golf from the first time it came on on Golf Channel to when it went to NBC, I would have watched it. And it was tough for me not to watch at least five minutes of it. But I did a good job. I was able to show some will power a little bit. And maybe it helped a little bit. I don't know. It's more me than anything else. Q. The reason I ask, I mean this week, right now, looks a lot like last week, in terms of a massively bunched leader board, could you ever -- the times you have watched, have you been able to pick up what's needed in the last round, besides low score, just the ebb and flow? BILLY HORSCHEL: I think I've learned enough in the five years I've been out here on Tour, I feel like I'm a quick learner and I try to pick up on things from other guys. Like I said, I've watched golf since I was a little kid. So I pay attention pretty well. I've seen what guys do. And I've had opportunities to play with some of the best players in the world in the final rounds and just see what they do a little bit and pick their brains and just watch them. And I don't think I need to watch anymore golf to learn anything else. I think I've got enough stuff that I learned over the years and I've got a great team around me and that gives me great advice and I listen to them just tell me to keep it simple and not over think stuff. That's what I've been trying to do. Q. (Inaudible.) BILLY HORSCHEL: You know, I'm hoping that my buddy -- Matt Every is a really good friend of mine. I think when he had his boy a little over two years ago I've seen him change. He's become a lot more patient person, just -- so I'm hoping maybe with me having my own kid that maybe my patience meter will grow a little bit and I'll have a little more patience out here on the golf course. Because obviously with a kid, you know, a little one, you know, they eat when they want to eat, they cry, whatever. It's going to be a great feeling. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be life changing for me in a good way. I'm already understanding that golf is no longer life or death. There's always a tomorrow, and there's always -- the sun rises. There's always bigger things than what I do out here on the golf course, and that will be my little girl that comes in a couple of weeks. DOUG MILNE: Billy, best of luck tomorrow. BILLY HORSCHEL: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|