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FRYS.COM OPENOctober 8, 2014Jarrod LyleNAPA, CALIFORNIA JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Jarrod Lyle into the interview room here at the Frys.com Open. Jarrod, it's a pleasure having you back on the PGA TOUR, making your first start on TOUR since February of 2012. It's been another long road for you, but congratulations on Monday qualifying this week, and welcome back to the TOUR. JARROD LYLE: Yeah, thank you. It's nice to be back and nice to be amongst all the guys again and out there playing golf. JOHN BUSH: 66 on Monday. Just take us through that round and how you played and the state of your game coming into the week. JARROD LYLE: Yeah, look, I obviously played pretty decent on Monday. I was 6‑under through 10 holes, and things were heading pretty well, and then couldn't really buy a birdie the last few holes, but ended up in a playoff with eight guys for four spots, and I birdied the second hole and was the second guy through. It was a nice time to roll in a 25‑footer to get another tournament in. Q. Just given how long it's been since you played the PGA TOUR and everything you've been through, what were the emotions when you knew that you were playing? JARROD LYLE: It probably wasn't so much at the time when I holed the putt. I sort of gave myself a little fist pump and thought, I've done it. But in the car on the way home, I kind of screamed like a little girl that I'd finally done it and got myself into a tournament that I wasn't going to be playing. It was just one of those things. I felt really proud of the way I played on Monday. I came up here with a job to do, and that was to obviously Monday qualify to get into the tournament. As I said before, I've been working really hard on my golf game and getting back into good shape, and to come out and achieve my first goal this week, which was to Monday qualify, it's got the year off to a really, really good start. Q. Were you disappointed or angry about not getting an exemption? Do you feel like you should have gotten one? JARROD LYLE: Oh, I don't feel like I should have got one at all. You know, it's a tough job being a tournament director. You get letters every week to choose, so it's difficult, everybody has got a story. My story is a little bit different than everybody else's, I guess, but look, it's one of those things. He's obviously chosen the right people that he wanted to choose for those spots, and I missed out as well as 390 other people missed out, as well. I can't be disappointed, and I've got myself into the tournament on my own merits, which that's what makes me really proud. Q. How many letters have you written, and how many do you have secured going forward? JARROD LYLE: We've written two letters so far. We wrote to Frys and Vegas. Vegas gave me an invite three months ago when they received the letter, and I've got to go back to Australia straight after Vegas to see the doctors and things like that, so it's only these two events, so I wanted to try and get into it to start, and I've got them. It's perfect. Q. Speaking of that, what kind of treatment are you going through? Is it still sort of intensive, or is it something that you sort of monitor, and how is that going? JARROD LYLE: Yeah, look, I'm having no treatment at all. I'm just going to take a penicillin tablet every day for the rest of my life, and that's just precautionary type thing. But in terms of treatment, there's nothing. I've just got to have obviously regular blood tests and things, which I could have done over here, but it's my little safety blanket to go back to Australia and see my doctor and get it all done back there. It just sort of worked out this time that we're going to be home in time for it, and it works out. It's really good for me to be able to go home just for my sort of sense of well‑being. Q. I've read some of your story and I've heard about you. In terms of as you're going through this type of ordeal or crisis, however you want to describe it, there could be a tendency to have kind of a woe is me, whiney, constantly on your brain, or it could be you get through it and you become inspired and you become somebody who's an inspiring figure. Have you kind of gone through that process mentally? JARROD LYLE: Yeah. Look, in all honesty I think the two times that I've had it, I don't think I've ever said why me. It's something that I've obviously annoyed somebody somewhere. They've chucked it at me twice now, so I've disappointed someone. But I don't think I've ever said why me. It's something that makes me very proud, that I've never sort of backed away from the fire, I've sort of come straight up to it. I don't know whether that's me being an Aussie or something, but I've just gone into it head first and said, look, it's not going to beat me. I'm not going to let it beat me because I had things I wanted to achieve. I wanted to get married, I wanted to have kids, I wanted to get back here and play golf. I'm just looking forward to the future now, and I don't know what life is going to have in store for me in years to come, but right now I'm here to play golf, and that's what I'm going to do. Q. How was your game when you played in the Web.com events compared to where your game is at right now? JARROD LYLE: My game is a lot better than it was in those Web.com events. I came out the first week, played really solid, finished 11th in Kansas City, but there was still some rust, and the other three that I played there was still some rust. I don't know whether my head wasn't quite right or what, but I don't know, it's hard to sort of put down what it was, but it was just those silly little 1 percenters, those mistakes you can make out here. Every time I missed a green it was on the short side, so I struggled to make pars. I kept putting myself under a lot of pressure with bad first rounds. I'd like to think now that that's all sort of passed and I'm ready to come out and play some really solid golf. The work I did last week in Vegas was incredible. I've got a good routine now going into every tournament and know that we're going to play well. Q. You mentioned sort of not backing away, going straight after it. How much different was it the second time, given that the timing of it was extraordinary, having a child while you're dealing with this?  How much did their presence in your life shape the way you fought it the next second? JARROD LYLE: Well, I think if it wasn't for my wife, I probably wouldn't be here. She made the doctors delay my training so I could be at the birth, to be able to see my daughter be born and to sort of have that to hang onto as I was dealing with what I was dealing with. You know, I obviously don't know how she got through everything, dealing with a husband who was sick and having a newborn daughter who she had to care for pretty much 24/7. If it basically wasn't for her strength, I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be in the position I'm in now to be able to play golf again. I owe a lot to her for kicking me in the ass pretty much. Q. What are your goals for this season? JARROD LYLE: Simple: Make enough money that I can keep a job. I'd love to be able to go out there and win a golf tournament and take care of everything early, but I've got an opportunity that I didn't think I was going to have two and a half years ago. My goals are simple: Go out there, make cuts, make money, get my status, get my job back, and play for as long as I can. I'm a simple man with simple goals. Q. What's the emotional end of your return to Australia and return back on the PGA TOUR? I mean, that was a pretty big moment coming back. What's the milestone like now? JARROD LYLE: Mate, I don't know. I think the reason Australia was so emotional is because I have a lot of family and friends around. There were family and friends around me the whole time that helped out with my wife and Lusi and we were visiting me in the hospital and that kind of stuff. I think that's what made that one really emotional, but I think this is going to be just as emotional because these guys on the PGA TOUR, they've reached out to us from the start and they're always texting and emailing and getting in contact and just making sure we're doing okay. To be able to have such a big family behind us over there, like the PGA TOUR is a big family, and to be able to have them in your corner, as well, sort of helping you deal with everything, that's great. I've enjoyed the last couple of days just being out here and seeing everybody and thanking them for their support over the last couple years. Q. Who are you closest to out here that doesn't talk like you? JARROD LYLE: I don't know. I'm friends with a lot of people. Q. I guess what I'm getting at is did you realize you had this much support? JARROD LYLE: No. No idea, because you're in such a competitive sport that you're fighting against these guys every week to try and beat them and beat your mates and things like that. I thought it was kind of‑‑ they would just forget about it a little bit and say, best of luck with everything. But to have the support of the guys‑‑ probably the guy that was the best out of the whole PGA TOUR was Rickie Fowler. He was a guy that he was wearing stuff on his hat for me, and he won one year at Charlotte wearing a Luke the duck, and Scott Piercy wore a Luke the duck when he won in Canada, as well. They're two of my good mates out here. God forbid they were in a situation like that, I'd be the first one in their corner. Q. What was your relationship like with Rickie before this? JARROD LYLE: It was good. I played with Rickie in Phoenix when he played his first PGA TOUR event, and I got really friendly with him and his family that week. We've just been mates ever since. To be able to have such a good guy, like he understands what the game of golf is all about. He's a good ambassador for the game. To be able to have him sort of in my corner, as well, meant the world to me. Q. Does your wife and daughter travel with you? JARROD LYLE: Yes. Q. So they go with you wherever you go? JARROD LYLE: Yeah. We're a traveling family now, mate. We've got an RV, and we've driven across from Orlando up to here. We've seen a fair bit of the countryside now, so yeah, they travel with me every week. Q. I've heard great stories about your beautiful daughter and she's obviously a source of inspiration for you. Just seeing her presence, can you talk a little bit about that, how she came along right at kind of a critical time? JARROD LYLE: Yeah, she obviously, as I said earlier, she came at a pretty crappy time, and it was the thing that I needed to be able to see was to see her be born and be part of that whole experience. You know, just to be there‑‑ because that was one of my life's goals was to have a child, and I didn't know it was going to be possible off the first round of chemotherapy I had years ago. She's sort of I guess a miracle child for me to be able to have her. She knows nothing about what I've been through this time around, and she'll find out one day. She'll see all the stories and wonder why daddy has got no hair and why does daddy have oxygen tubes in his nose and all kinds of stuff. She'll find out about it one day, but she's such a good little girl, and she's pretty much grown up in hospital. She's just been there‑‑ without even knowing it, she's been there supporting me through the whole thing, as well. Q. Talk about the PGA TOUR wrapping their arms around you in some way. There's sort of a perception of the TOUR that nobody really cares about anybody else. To hear your story, it seems like just the opposite is true. JARROD LYLE: Yeah, well, it is. There hasn't been a lot of stories like mine out here on the PGA TOUR, but I remember it must have been the week after I got sick that everyone was at Bay Hill, and I live in Orlando right near Bay Hill, and The Golf Channel got together and organized all the guys to get on camera and say a few words to me, and Tripp Isenhour was the one that sort of instigated this thing, and he told me something was going to happen in the mail a couple weeks later, there was this DVD that turned up, and I watched it and I cried for 45 minutes. I still cry when I look at it. But these guys were taking 30 seconds out of their day to jump on camera to wish me all the best, guys that I probably haven't spoke to much or haven't played with before, but to see those guys get on there and just wish us all the best, that meant the world, and it showed me how much support that I had from my competitors and my peers over here. It was just incredible, and it's something that I'm going to cherish until the day I die is this DVD from guys just saying hello or just saying good luck or we're thinking about you and that kind of stuff. It definitely meant the world to have everybody at the PGA TOUR, not just the players but the officials and rules guys and media guys, all these people behind the PGA TOUR, that they were behind me this whole time. Q. That was in 2012? JARROD LYLE: Yeah. Q. What's your perspective on golf? How do you approach golf differently than you did before? How do you view your career differently? JARROD LYLE: Oh, look, I think you can put it into simple terms that bogeys mean nothing. If you go out there and you have 80, you know, you've obviously experienced the golf course a bit more than you should have, but a bad round doesn't mean anything anymore. You hear guys say your son or daughter doesn't know what you shot, and that's the way it is. I know I've shot 80, but I don't care. At the Australian Masters last year I shot 79, and it's the best 79 I've ever had in my life. Whether I have 90 this week or 60 this week, it doesn't make any difference whatsoever. I'm out there playing golf, and to me that's the best achievement I could have got out of this whole ordeal. Q. At the same time, obviously, like you said, you want to keep playing, you want to keep your card. Is that any different than it was before? JARROD LYLE: Yes. I've got a job to do now. I'm back doing my job, and that's to play the best golf I can play. Obviously through this whole thing, I've said from the start, and I sat down with my wife and we talked about it, and she said, we need to get you to be a better player than you were before you got sick, and I can honestly say I think I'm a better golfer than I was before I got sick. I've sort of, I guess, just figured out how to play golf before I got sick, and now I've had a lot of time to sit and think about everything. Now I know what I need to do different, and we're putting all those things in place now, and things are looking good. I'm happy with the state of everything, and I'm just looking forward to getting out there and trying to get my money up as soon as I can to get my position in the categories and get more tournaments. Q. You're only going to be linked with what you've overcome health‑wise and personal‑wise, but it's not like when you started this thing you had the pedigree of a Scottie or an Allenby. How proud are you of what you've achieved in golf, how much work you've put into it and how much you've improved to get to where you are? JARROD LYLE: I'm very happy. You know, because there was times I was ready to walk away from the game of golf. You know, there was days where I never thought I would play golf again and I didn't want to play golf again. To be able to come from that point to where I am, it's taken a lot of work, and it's still going to need a lot more work. You know, it's something that I'm not going to sit here and say I'm one of the world's most recognizable players, but I want to become somebody that I'm very happy with. I want to become someone that I know that I've done all the work that I can to be the best possible golfer I can be, and that's still a fair way away, and I know I've got a lot of work to do to achieve that, but I'm a step in the right direction here. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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