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THE McGLADREY CLASSICOctober 22, 2014Tony FinauSEA ISLAND, GEORGIA Q. You're 6'4", 210. Is your playing weight 210? TONY FINAU: Yeah. Q. How good are your spirits right now, 12th and then 7th, plus you played well in the Big Break Reunion? TONY FINAU: Yeah. Q. What are you feeling right now going into this week? TONY FINAU: I feel pretty good. You know, I think my confidence on the golf course is pretty high. I'm coming off a couple nice finishes. But you know, I definitely don't feel like I'm getting comfortable or complacent or anything. I feel like my goals, my personal goals for myself are pretty high and I have confidence in my ability, so hopefully I continue to improve that as we move forward in the season. Q. Can you elaborate what your goals are? TONY FINAU: You know, I have personal goals. I think that I don't really need to make them public, but I think I showed myself that‑‑ I played my way here, so I showed myself that I belong, and then having a couple nice finishes just kind of helps me confirm that, I guess. Q. Talk about playing your way here. Obviously it's been quite a road. What's it like to kind of see that pay off over the last couple weeks here? TONY FINAU: Yeah, it's nice. I guess to go back to that first question, one of my goals was just to come out here and try to get comfortable as soon as possible with my surroundings, just with a lot of the attention that rookies get and things like that. This is a little bit different than the Web.com TOUR. The media, the people, the money, everything is just like they told us in rookie orientation, everything kind of times ten. The way I look at that is just try to get out here and be yourself and do your best to play your game because a lot of the distractions, I guess you can call it, or the outside interferences, can play a part into it. Q. Doing the Big Break stuff and just kind of being around the last five, six years, did that help with that stuff, getting acclimated? TONY FINAU: Yeah, for sure, big break was huge for us. I was 19 years old when I got on the first big break, and that was a great experience. I've never had that many cameras following me around and things like that, so that was nice for my brother and I as far as a marketability standpoint, and then as you play as you play better, just like you get a little more accustomed to it, and then it was nice a couple weeks ago playing in the big break invitational to kind of get my feet wet on a scene where I knew there was going to be a lot of attention on me and things like that. I thought I handled it pretty well, and so far this year I've played pretty well in the first two starts. Q. How much better of a player and why are you a much better player than you were two years ago or three years ago or five years ago? TONY FINAU: Just from experience, all the experiences that I've had. Working with my new swing coach, Boyd Summerhays, he's helped quite a bit, just it's been about seven months now that we've worked together. I felt like we've really molded my game nicely and attacked the parts of my game where we feel like we could definitely improve on and keep the parts where I could use‑‑ like obviously my length and things like that, things I don't want to lose. But overall just‑‑ I think just experience, coming out at a young age, I don't know that I put a lot of expectation on myself as far as how long I wanted it to take and things like that, but overall just the full experience of playing professional golf I think has helped me get to this point. Q. What were the biggest parts of your game that you wanted to improve the most and what do you need to improve the most? TONY FINAU: The great thing about playing on the Web.com TOUR last year is they have a season stat for every part of your game, sand saves, putting average, all those kind of things, and I was at the top of the list in most of the categories which was nice to see that my game was good, but there was a couple categories, one of them being sand saves and then the other one, driving accuracy, and obviously I know I'm not going to lead the TOUR in driving accuracy if I'm leading the Tour in driving distance. It doesn't work out that way. But at least if I can be respectable, how well I drive the ball, with how far I hit it, my length would be a huge advantage, I think, on the PGA TOUR. Those are two areas I feel like I need to improve on, and I was able to do that I think the last couple weeks for the most part. Not even for me a lot of times not even hitting the fairways, just kind of keeping the ball in play. I was able to do that the last couple weeks. Q. Doing mini‑Tours and that kind of thing the last couple years, did you do any kind of homemade stats? You were talking about having a full suite at your disposal. TONY FINAU: Not really. When you play mini‑Tour events, like you said, you kind of have to do your homework on yourself and your own stats, but overall I never felt like I didn't belong out here. I just feel like if I continued to work on my game and work on my craft, then eventually it would happen, and I'm pretty fortunate and pretty blessed that it has. Q. Was it five times at Q‑school? TONY FINAU: Six. Q. What was it like after the sixth one? TONY FINAU: Yeah, it was an unbelievable feeling because I knew the opportunity was available to me that I've never had before. I've never even got past second stage until last year, so when I got through second stage, it was just‑‑ it was probably one of the best feelings I've ever had just because I knew I had some kind of status on one of the bigger Tours in the world, the Web.com TOUR, and from there the opportunities were endless if I let them be, so I was able to play really well last year on the Web.com TOUR, and so far this year on the PGA TOUR, this season, I've had a couple nice finishes. I knew the opportunities were there, and that was huge for me after last year getting through qualifying school. Q. It's inevitable you're going to be called the Next Big Thing, one, because you're big, two, because you're long. How are you going to handle that? TONY FINAU: You know, I grew up from humble beginnings, and that's something that‑‑ it's pretty inevitable because when I was younger, I didn't come from much and things like that. You know, I won't have‑‑ I don't really have an ego or anything like that. When you guys are writing big articles and things like that on me, I stay pretty grounded because I think I understand who I am as a person and as a player, and I won't step out of bounds outside of that. I'll continue to attack every week the same and try to stick to my game plan as best as possible. Q. How much interaction did you have with TOUR players that are already out here and that kind of thing, either before this year or the last five, six years? TONY FINAU: It was nice in the Web.com TOUR Playoffs to kind of connect with Chad Campbell, when you kind of mix and you've kind of already played with those guys, so I played with Jonathan Byrd in the first playoff TOUR event, I talked quite a bit with Chad Campbell, just a few veterans that I've really looked up to as a kid, so that was nice just to kind of get comfortable around guys that realistically I'm used to watching them on TV, and now I'm seeing them in person. Q. (Inaudible.) TONY FINAU: He's a guy that I look up to, we shape the ball the same way, being a cut for a right‑hander, and kind of the same size, so that's somebody that I kind of pattern my game after, I guess, and that was nice to have a conversation with him and just kind of pick their brains because even though I'm probably not the youngest rookie, I still have a lot to learn, I know, as far as playing the game and playing the golf courses out here. That's kind of the disadvantage we're at as rookies. A lot of times I'll kind of approach them and say, hey, do you want to play in a practice round with me, I'd love to have the opportunity, and for the most part it's just to pick their brain about the golf course and the way they play it. Q. Do you remember anything specifically from any of those practice rounds that you kind of saw, like oh, okay, that's how they do that? TONY FINAU: Yeah, well, I played with Steve Flesch in the 2011 Sony Open, and although that wasn't very recent, I still remember how good his short game was, and he never really putted while he practiced. He would just hit a bunch of shots around the greens, and I kind of asked him about it, I said, you're not really hitting any putts. He's like, well, I know‑‑ I can always practice putting on the practice green, and when I'm on the golf course I know the lies that I get will be a little funky. I practice chipping when I'm out here, I don't really practice putting. If I'm hitting it good, then hopefully I make some putts that day. I've played here long enough, he knows where all the flags are already, he knows where all the breaks are, so that's not an issue, it's just when he does miss a green, he's trying to get up‑and‑down from everywhere. I learned a lot from that at that time. He's right, we're over here putting in all these putts, and you might not even hit the green all week. I learned quite a bit from that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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