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THE McGLADREY CLASSICOctober 24, 2014Will MacKenzieSEA ISLAND, GEORGIA Q. Was this just something you and Adam planned? WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah. They went last year and Paul Loegering from TaylorMade, and you know, Geoff Ogilvy. He didn't go this year, but some of those guys, and they said, you know, they knew I surfed, and I guess I didn't get the invite. If you're on the Web Tour, you don't get those invites. (Laughs). I'm just kidding. You know how it is. Well, I'm gone. I'm not around. You know, you know how it is. All my best buddies out there, I barely even talked to them this year, because they're grinding, I'm grinding out here. If you go down there, that's your boys. You don't even talk to these guys. So yeah, they went last year and said it was unbelievable. They went to a cool little surf camp, and man, I mean it's not like‑‑ I mean it's a nice little place, Mark and Dave's, but it's not like ‑‑ we didn't stay at the McCool Resort. There were like crabs in my room and bugs. It was nice. It was the real deal. Q. What week was that? WILL MACKENZIE: The week after the TOUR Championship. So I went on Saturday. We all met there on Saturday, 13th, September 13th through the 20th. Scotty got in there Monday morning. Q. That's Adam Scott? WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah. Q. Where was this again? WILL MACKENZIE: I mean it's the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, pretty southern. I don't know what they call it, other than we went to where those two waves are. I don't know‑‑ Q. How often do you even get to surf anymore? WILL MACKENZIE: Never. Never. I mean I was chopping. I mean I was like a 30 handicap, like literally. The best surfer there, golfer was Nick Flanagan. He went. And Nick Flanagan, he surfs a lot, and he surfed really well.  Scotty surfs very well. Q. What was his handicap? WILL MACKENZIE: They all are like single digits. Yeah, yeah, they get up, go down the line. They'll surf‑‑ it was like that. I mean it was huge when we got there. Huge. I mean it was sketchy. I almost died the first day, literally drowned. Q. Is it a reef break? WILL MACKENZIE: There is one‑‑ the first day my shoulder was bothering me, so I finned out in fins. One of the guys that came was a professional surf photographer. And I finned out, and like about 30 minutes into it, I was out in the lineup, I'd made it and my like left calf locks up, like full‑on cramp. And you got‑‑ you know, you're swimming the whole time, with fins. So there's no way to get it out. So I'm trying to get it out. And then after about an hour, I'm like, I gotta get going here. And my right starts to go. So I'm swimming on my back, and these bombs‑‑ I'm trying to get in. Everything is sucking you out, and these bombs are coming in, and I'm having to go deep, you know, to not get totally torn apart. So it was just like, I mean I came up a couple of times on my last breath like, ah, oh, oh, (breathing heavy) like that, like okay, I'm out of shape and I'm out of my element here. But I grew up doing it, so I'm at ease there. But I was struggling. I mean like I said‑‑ Q. It's not like Wilmington? WILL MACKENZIE: Not like Wilmington. It can be good. Q. Does getting away help your game at all? WILL MACKENZIE: I think it did. You know, this year was such‑‑ I was like, people were like, wow, you're like pretty good again. You know what I'm saying, like you were good, and I was starting to believe. And then I go and just play like total‑‑ I mean just awful for the second half. So it was good to just say, you know, let's get away and then come back and I'll talk to my coach about it. And the whole time I'm crunching the numbers in my head, too, like wondering, you know, so I came up with it, I just blamed it on my kids, basically. I'm like, look, all I do is sit out and get on the boat and drink beer when y'all are‑‑ in the summers, I don't practice. Q. How encouraging is it for you this week? WILL MACKENZIE: It's good. It's good. Yeah, they're back in school, so I've been able to practice a little bit, too. Q. So you're totally blaming it on the kids? WILL MACKENZIE: Totally, dude. It's not me. It's not me. I have a higher skill level than that. Q. In terms of practice, what have you been focusing most on getting ready for the season? WILL MACKENZIE: I'm just going to‑‑ you know, with the coach, my coach, he was like, look, you didn't put forth the work, so I'm just going to work on my short game. You can't go wrong. If you have the club in your hand a lot, putting and chipping, you can't play too bad. I mean you can have some bad weeks, of course, but you know, I'm still athletic enough where I can put the club on the ball pretty well, and it's not like I'm going to be hitting total foul balls all the time. It's just‑‑ it's just‑‑ when your short game is no good, then you can't get it up‑and‑down, so you can't shoot 70 or 71 on those sort of halfway days and stay in the golf tournament. Q. Is that where you got sideways in the last tournament? WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, I just didn't practice. Didn't practice, went on vacations and just hung out, and I just kind of relished in my early success, I think. I think I have to just relax and go put forth‑‑ my coach says, look, on your off weeks let's go out to the golf course five days a week, whether it be 30 minutes or an hour. You can go out there with both kids, and if they're running crazy in the pond, just go out there and make sure you do your putting drill for 10 or 15 minutes and chip, you know, chip and pitch for 15 minutes, minimum. And then at least you feel like you've done a little something, instead of just going straight on the boat about 10 a.m., going like this at about 11:30, a little IPA. I go, Mav, go to the cooler, get that other beer. We snorkel. Q. Did you still have your boards from before? WILL MACKENZIE: No. I haven't had‑‑ well, yeah, I still surf in Florida every now and then. I mean it's gotta be good for me to even go out, because you can't go out when it's like this against all the little kids that are like 12 to 15. They're unbelievable. They're so good, they're so fast. They paddle, they'll like go and cut you off. It's not that fun. So I had a board‑‑ I broke a board in Hurricane Sandy a couple of years ago, and but I do have a new board that I bought just for‑‑ I didn't take it down there on this trip. But I'm going to try to get back into it. Hopefully he'll start surfing. He's into the ocean, so he loves it. So hopefully he'll start surfing and that'll kind of get me back into it too. Q. How old are the kids now? WILL MACKENZIE: Maverick, how old are you? MAVERICK MACKENZIE: Six. WILL MACKENZIE: Six. And the other one is four and a half. Maverick, and the other one's name is Nash. Both of them are‑‑ he's a pretty good little golfer. He's fun to practice with. The other one, you know, you gotta have a high pad at least. Q. Who's chasing them around today on the course? They're not solo, are they? WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, yeah, my in‑laws. Yeah, they come out, they're going to come out about five or six events so that the boys can come out. Q. Going back to your short game how many times do you find yourself getting up‑and‑down? WILL MACKENZIE: Yeah, I mean it's just every shot, when you're practicing short game, even if you're uncomfortable with a shot, at least you've hit so many shots, you free up a little bit. When you're not practicing, man, those tight, tight lies, you start getting a little scared of it and you hit it to nine feet instead of six feet. It's a lot easier to make a six‑footer than it is nine‑footer on fast greens that are‑‑ I mean just you're hitting it a foot, two feet, three feet closer on average. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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