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HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONSJanuary 12, 2015Chris KirkKAPALUA, HAWAII CHRIS KIRK: Haven't got to practice a whole lot, but something kind of clicked for me on the Back 9, hit a lot of wedges close. Q. Hit that one close and made the birdie putt. Okay, let's go to the tee at 11, what a view and what a shot. CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. That's one of the most scenic holes on the course, and yeah, it was kind of a nice little chip 9 iron that worked out perfect. Q. Chris getting some love from some fellow TOUR players as they drive by making the turn here at the 18th hole. Okay. Now, your third at 13. How about this? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. It wasn't a great wind shot, but it landed only a few feet left of the hole and just spun off the green and ended up in a pretty nice position. Anytime you see a TOUR player take out the flag chipping, that's what they're trying to do. Q. And the 14th, your second shot? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. Another nice little wedge shot. Had some good numbers, so good little half wedge numbers which I like doing and I believe that one was about 78 yards up the hill. Q. You made that birdie as well. Okay. Let's go to 15, it's a par‑5. Third shot. Not the easiest of shots down there. CHRIS KIRK: No. But thankfully you've got a little bit of a back stop there. Anything short or right is going to come right back to your feet, but I was able to use that back stop effectively. Q. Okay. So you're rolling along, here you go and you're going to try to roll one in here at 16? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. I've had this putt thankfully. Only 12 feet or so, but it breaks about six feet. Just an insane putt, but to get it just right was one of those days, I guess. Q. What were your emotions like standing over this putt? CHRIS KIRK: I'm not really much of an emotional guy, I guess, but no, I was just trying to make another solid stroke like I have the last couple days. Q. 62, and you carry some momentum into next week at the Sony Open in Hawaii where you were a runner up a year ago. Thanks, Chris. Congratulations. CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Q. What a phenomenal round of 62. Did you switch putters, too, or just the grip? CHRIS KIRK: Both, yeah. I switched putters, too. Q. So I noticed you had a few big numbers on your card the last few days. What was the difference in getting rid of those? CHRIS KIRK: I drove it way better today. I mean I drove it really right where I was looking all day, which was nice. Kind of remembered a little bit of something, a key of mine that had me driving the ball so well around the Masters and U.S. Open last year. It was a thought of just really trying to stay in my posture as long as I can and that helps the club really just track down the line going through and makes the ball fly really straight. Q. How did you hurt your wrist? CHRIS KIRK: I was playing in the yard with my two‑year‑old and kind of slipped and just landed on it funny. It was‑‑ it wasn't hurt bad at all. It happened on Sunday right before I went down to the Hero, so if I had just rested for probably 10 days, it would have been fine, but I went straight down and played that tournament and aggravated it a little bit more. But it was just a mild sprain. No big deal. Q. Left wrist? CHRIS KIRK: Left wrist, yeah. Q. Easier to get on a roll like that when you're playing by yourself? CHRIS KIRK: I don't know. I mean yeah, I guess so. In the past, whenever I've been first off by myself, I haven't really enjoyed it, because it's just kind of‑‑ especially if you're not playing great, it's always your turn, you know. You want‑‑ sometimes you want to just sort of sit there and stair off into space and gather yourself. But when you're playing as well as I was today, I was happy that it was always my turn. Q. How much fun was today? You finish in 2:48. You obviously tied the course record. How much fun did you have? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. Billy and I had a blast. Bill Harke, my caddie. And after a little bit of an off season there, we still had plenty to sort of catch up about. So it was great. Pretty casual, comfortable round. Q. Did I hear you say that you changed your putter grips between yesterday and today? CHRIS KIRK: I started putting with a claw grip yesterday. Q. Yesterday. Yesterday's round? CHRIS KIRK: Yesterday's round, yeah. Yesterday was the first day that I put it in, and changed putters, too. So like I said, it's something that I've been practicing with for probably six months, and I hadn't put it in play yet until yesterday. I putted really well last year, to be honest with you, but there were just some times that I didn't feel like I was getting the ball started on line as well as I could. I mean I feel like I generally am a very good putter out here because I have good speed and I read the greens really well. So if I can find a way to consistently start the ball on line a little bit better, I should be able to have more days like today. Q. Did you get that in college, too? Is that what the claw does is help you get on line? CHRIS KIRK: Maybe. That's the idea, I guess, you know. But really what it does for me is that I have a tendency, especially with the putter I was using before, that heel shaft putter, I'll get a little bit lazy. I never have great posture in my putting, but that's the way it's always been. But if my hands get a little bit too low at address, that's when I start putting inconsistently. So when I hold that ‑‑ instead of my right hand being there, when I hold it more of the pencil grip, it gets the putter a little bit higher in my left hand and gets my left hand where it needs to be for the putter to track a little bit better. Q. Do you have a consistent mess, then, when you're lazy like that? CHRIS KIRK: Left, yeah. I'll pull a lot of putts. And the more pressure that's on me, the more likely that'll be to happen. Q. Why is it that you use a different putter with the claw grip? I guess you just made the change. Why did you feel like you needed to make the change with the putter as well? CHRIS KIRK: I really liked that no. 7 that I have that has sort of the fangs coming off the back. It's just a little bit easier to line up. It's not face balance, but it's closer to face balance than my No. 9 heel shaft was. So with my hands a little bit higher than that in the claw grip, I tend to track it a little bit more straight back, straight through than I do with the No. 9, to I don't really that as much toe hang and as much swing as that other putter has. Q. Were you aware of the course record number or when did you become aware? CHRIS KIRK: No. I mean I knew it was somewhere around that, but I wasn't really too worried about it, to be honest with you. Q. How close was that second shot on 18 to catching that slope and being really close? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. Maybe two or three yards further left, and that's down there probably 15 feet from the hole. Yeah. It's such a‑‑ especially with a left‑to‑right wind coming off that downslope, the severe downslope is what makes that shot so difficult that you're hitting off. It's so hard to not get the ball started right and then with that left‑to‑right wind is going to prevent you from really being able to hit much of a draw. Even to get it on that right side of the green, I was aiming right at the flag. I was trying to hit it right at it and make a 3. So I think you'll see guys later on, if they're trying to hit the right side of the green, they're going to miss the green right more than likely. Q. All the success of last year, is this the best run you've had over anything last year? CHRIS KIRK: Individual round, probably yeah. I can't think of a day where really everything‑‑ pretty much every wedge shot I hit ended up pretty close, and every time I had a good look at birdie, I pretty much rolled in the middle. So it was pretty cool. Q. What was the longest putt you made today? CHRIS KIRK: I have no idea. Q. When is the last time you finished a round on the PGA TOUR in under three hours? Ever? CHRIS KIRK: Oh, yeah. Definitely. I played‑‑ I was first off Saturday at Colonial one year by myself. A long time ago. And I think it was before I was on TOUR I was playing on sponsor exemption. And I was first off Saturday, and I believe I played in maybe two hours and 20 minutes or something like that. Maybe two and a half. That course is a little easier to walk than this one. I mean I was going slow today I felt like. I felt like I was really taking my time, and whenever there was a tee shot or something like that where I just had to walk up a big hill, for example, getting up to 16 tee from 15 green is a pretty steep hill. So I hung out for probably a minute or so and had some water and talked to Bill and just sort of chilled out for a while and then hit, you know. I was probably six holes ahead of the group behind me, so I wasn't really in a rush. Q. 62 going into Sony, can you just talk about how you're going to approach that versus if you had walked off yesterday on a normal Sunday and had a shot at 73 going into Sony? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. Obviously I was a little bit frustrated after the last three days, but never really felt like my game was that far off. It just felt rusty. Like I was saying, there's nothing wrong with my swing, and I felt good about my game. I just was trying to shed a little bit of rust from the last few months of not really getting to practice much. Yeah, I mean obviously I feel a lot better than I would have after yesterday. Q. But you feel good about the fact that you actually found something you can build on which is the new putting stroke? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. It's exciting. Despite my success of last year, ever since the TOUR Championship pretty much, I played well at McGladrey and played pretty well at HSBC, but I didn't putt the way I would have liked. If I had putted well at McGladrey, I would have won pretty easily there, I think. I hit the ball great. So yeah, to try to hopefully get a combination of hitting the ball a little bit better and some stuff that Scott and I are working on. If I can get where I feel like I'm consistently rolling the ball down the line on putting, that's a pretty good combination. Q. So you've been thinking about the claw for four or six months, whatever it might be. When you're in a limited field, no‑cut tournament like this and you're not playing well, is that a time where you're by yourself to experiment in competition, put like a Bridgestone or a WGC or something. Maybe you're not playing well but you got this free weekend to experiment. CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. Absolutely. After my poor round on Saturday, the second round, I putted really terrible that day. I mean I didn't putt well the first day either, but kind of got away with some good shots and still played a pretty decent round. But after hitting some bad shots on Saturday and putting terrible, it was a good time to do it. It was funny, though, being‑‑ I was the second group off yesterday with Angel, and a new putter and trying a different grip, I was like, oh, we'll be second off. Nobody will really see me. And there were camera right there, because we were the only group on the golf course pretty much. So they didn't have anybody else to film. I had like a six‑footer for birdie on the first hole and a six‑footer for par on the second hole. That range that's obviously going to be pretty nervous when you're trying something like that. And had the camera right there down the line watching me putt, and I know the announcers were talking about it because it's something different for me. That was a good test. I made both of them. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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