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SONY OPEN IN HAWAIIJanuary 14, 2015Nick TaylorHONOLULU, HAWAII JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Nick Taylor to the interview room here at the Sony Open in Hawai'i, already having a fabulous season with a win at the Sanderson Farms Championships. Just get some comments on being here at the Sony Open. NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I've come before for the pro‑am, which is what happened earlier, so I've been to Oahu, actually kind of acclimatized playing last week, so yeah, I'm excited to be here. I like the golf course. It kind of fits my game, so I'm excited to play. Q. Talk a little bit about your week last week at Kapalua and your goals for the week. NICK TAYLOR: Yes, relaxed last week. It was quite a good experience. It was amazing. The course was a really tough walk, but it was a fun course to play. Yeah, I feel like my game has come around. Took a lot of time off, but starting to come on. I like this course. It's tight off the tee, but you can score well on the greens which is kind of my strength, so I'm excited about the week. Q. What's life been like as a PGA TOUR winner the past couple months here? NICK TAYLOR: It's been busy at home, nothing crazy in public or anything, but seeing a lot of family and friends. I went on my honeymoon in December for about 10 days, belated for me, so it was nice to get away and be with my wife Angie. Other than that, nothing has really changed. It's been nice to be able to know my schedule, knowing where I'm going to be in four months. Q. Playing Web.com events, what's the best thing that Tour does to get you ready for out here? NICK TAYLOR: Traveling big time. Coming from the Canadian Tour, it was like a mini‑Web.com TOUR. It was only max three months, and so you never really get tired after every event, where last year Web.com last year I played 13 or 14 weeks and it was just a grind the last half, big time. And the courses were good. I think the Web.com finals were the best courses we played all year. But the travel I think big time was getting used to that, the grind of the whole year instead of just a few months. Q. You talked about picking your schedule, and this is an event where it's changed a little bit now with the wrap‑around schedule but this is one where there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of guys making their first start to the season. How does that free you up, change anything about your approach to the game? Are you more likely to experiment with stuff and that kind of thing? You kind of have the rest of the season locked up. NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, certainly. After that stretch I had last year, the end of it, my best tournament was Fry's. I was grinding so far just to keep my card out there. But I think now is the most I'll play is maybe three events in a row, excluding the first four I'm going to play. Last week there was an event and obviously I was trying to play well, as well, but it was more like a one‑off event. It's going to be great. If I'm tired I can take the week off. I don't have to worry about keeping my card this year, for the next couple. That's the nicest thing where I'm going to be refreshed for every event. Q. It takes a lot of work to get out here. What was your situation when you were playing the Pearl Open and some of the other stops along the way knowing this was the goal at the end of the road? NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, it was an event I heard about. David Ishii ran the event and he had an affiliation with (inaudible). It's a fun little course on the side of a mountain and actually reminded me a lot of Kapalua. It was just a fun event. It was around Valentine's Day when it happened and I came out with friends and had a nice fun week out in Hawai'i. It was a great way to start the year and now even better to be here. I've always loved Hawai'i. I played great when I was here in college, and I just love being here. I see myself being here a lot. Q. You've probably been asked this before, but were you surprised you did so well so quickly on the TOUR? NICK TAYLOR: Certainly. When you start playing the event you have your goal to win, but it didn't happen so quick for me to be in contention and pull it off the first time, I've been in contention a lot with different areas of college, amateur and pro, but yeah, I was surprised and it's still taking time to sink in. It happened so quick. It was more so what happened the three months leading up to it where it was‑‑ I was struggling to keep my card on the Web.com TOUR, and to get to the Web.com finals I was happy with that, and I kind of free‑wheeled it from there, played well to get my card, and good things happened from there. It was a lot to take in for the three or four months it was going on. So add that on to it, I was a little surprised, yeah, but I felt comfortable in that situation, too. Q. Now that you say you're surprised, obviously this does free you up a great deal because you've got your card through 2016, 2017, you're going to the Masters‑‑ NICK TAYLOR: No. Q. I'm sorry. But you never know, you might be going. Are you a lot more relaxed than you were? You were you say grinding it out? NICK TAYLOR: Yeah, for sure. I was two and a half years or three years almost of knowing where I'm going to be, which that's never happened really since turning pro. I get into some of the invitationals, get into the PLAYERS Championship, the huge events where if I play great it would move me up even further. The category a lot of us were in, the Web.com guys, you're not sure how many starts you're going to get in, especially until after México, and if I didn't play well, then who knows how many starts I would have got. It's more of a waiting game, where fortunately now I don't have to worry about that. This year if I play courses that don't really suit my game, maybe next year I can try different events. Q. Do you think this course suits your game? NICK TAYLOR: I do, yeah. I like being on golf courses that are more demanding hitting the fairways, and on the greens, these are tough greens, so I think that's kind of a strength of keeping it in play and getting it on the greens. Q. When you had your first victory, you were putting pretty spectacular. Has your putting been holding up to the same level? NICK TAYLOR: You know, that week is not going to happen every week. Usually a lot of those days, whoever putts the best will probably be in contention to win. Last week the first round putted really well, the next three rounds didn't putt great, but yeah, it still feels good. These are a little trickier to read. I'm not used to the grain, which I'm getting used to, but that's probably the toughest part is getting the speed down with the greens. JOHN BUSH: Nick, we appreciate your time this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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