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HUMANA CHALLENGE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATIONJanuary 22, 2015Blake AdamsLA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA MARK STEVENS: We'll get started. Like to welcome Blake Adams. Shot an 8‑under today in the first round in your first round on TOUR since last March. Due to injury. Take us through your thoughts on the round and if you expected this in your first start back. And then we'll have some questions. BLAKE ADAMS: Obviously I was very, very blessed to be back out here. It's been along road to get back. You never know what you're going to get when you have total hip replacement. I had two surgeries in a year and a half time frame. February of 2013 was my first surgery and then went back in, and in July and had total hip replacement. Been a battle to get back here, but I worked hard to get here and nice to see some putts fall and really no expectations. Just enjoy life and play golf, which is obviously a blessing in itself. MARK STEVENS: Questions? Q. The first injury, the initial injury, that was not a partial hip replacement or anything it was just surgery to repair. BLAKE ADAMS: Yes, sir. I was told in 2007 I needed total hip replacement, but I kept just kind of shooting it up with Cortizone to try to get by with it. They fixed five things. I had three bone spurs, a cyst, I had no cartilage, he shaved my finger and I had an insanely torn labrum. So he fixed all that stuff, but my spacing still wasn't great. And I came back then and arthritis obviously was terrible. Just a tough go. Q. So the second one they just said, okay we can't wait anymore? BLAKE ADAMS: Right. The heck with it, he, they just, I was really, really hitting bone and bone every step, every golf shot, obviously. It was something that I, I can remember vividly right before my surgery my wife and my family and I were in Target and I was back there by the cameras and everything and I looked at the front door, and I'm a grown man, and I almost started crying thinking that I can't get to the door. I cannot get to the door. It even goes back last year when I came back from surgery here, made the cut here, made the cut at Torrey, got somewhere around the third to last group at Pebble and I looked at my wife on Sunday morning and I told her that I didn't know if I could even play golf that day. My hip was so bad. And I just sort of slapped at it. Didn't do anything Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of L.A., got in decent, come the weekend, I think I was somewhere 15 or somewhere in that ballpark. Same thing. I had just nothing. I just slapped at it. After that, went home and did a ton of therapy and took MRI's and all this and that and I said I tried to come back Tampa, shouldn't even have teed it up. I was limping so bad. So not a good start there, obviously. And then they whacked it off in July. Q. So it was July. Did they give you a timetable at that point that six months 12 months? BLAKE ADAMS: They didn't really. Doctor Matta, the guy that did it, he did Tom Watson's, he pioneered this anterior approach and it was just a different ball game for my first surgery. The first surgery was week one you can do this, week two you can do this, it's a huge protocol I had this big thick book and said all right so now what and he said well, if you, you know, you're all good. And he said, if you do something and it hurts, don't do it again. Just kind of do your normal workouts and all that stuff and I said that's pretty simple. That's fine. So this was always my target date to get back. I kind of rushed the first one. But this was always my target tournament to come back to. So here we are. Q. Was it an old injury, was it an injury that you had that caused this or was it right tick or what was the reason you had to have the hip replaced? BLAKE ADAMS: They think that when I was born it just didn't fit in there snug. Then the wear and tear caused all the other debacle that it was. Walking was awful. I had a terrible limp. It was kind of a pimp limp, but it was. (Laughter.) I'm a red neck so I don't know, but whatever you call that. But it was a pretty bad limp. And it obviously the more and more I played the worse and worse it got and just something that just had to be done. Q. So the walking part of obviously everybody walks, it's something you did do the walking was it ginger the a first and you're ginger with it and light on your leg at first, but and even now, does it amaze you like being able to go down the hall the fairways and everything doing what you do and you don't have any discomfort or pain or things like that? BLAKE ADAMS: It's amazing. The first surgery I was on crutches for eight weeks I had to sit in this leg machine for six and a half hours a day all this stuff. The second one, the total hip, they got me out of bed first time at 20 hours and they said all right let's see what can you do and I walked around the nurses station three times, walked up 30 stairs back down they said, you can go home and I was like, this is a joke. Why didn't I do this way back in 2007. But it was the walking part was really a tough thing. I was telling my caddie we were playing here last week and I was walking up some of the stairs I think on the Nicklaus Course the par‑3 that goes up and I was going, gosh, I can remember last year like getting halfway up these stairs just going, this is not good. It just still hurt going upstairs. Downhill bunker shots hurt, downhill shots. Anything where I was leaning in on my left side was just garbage. It's just amazing now. My gait my walking gait is just as it's like moving my arm. It is amazing. I've had some tightness in my back and stuff, but that's just from basically fatigue. I actually flew out here January the 4th to practice because I haven't practiced, I practiced at home, but it's been with country music blaring and lasers and a golf cart. So I came out here to beat some balls and do all that. So basically I'm just fatigued out I hit so many golf balls since January 4. Q. What positives has it been to your game and are there any negatives that have come from this things that you had to change or anything like that? BLAKE ADAMS: Everybody's looked at this as gosh you have been through heck from for like two years and it's actually I'm the exact opposite I look at it as a blessing. I've been a dad and a husband for two years, I've been away from home six weeks total probably in two years. I've coached baseball, basketball, I've done all the, I mean all the stuff I drive my kids to school every day. Just very, very blessed. I've always had a great attitude about golf and how blessed I am to be out here on the greatest TOUR in the world and playing a game for a living. But it's even elevated now. I'm so lucky and I tried to play good golf and if I don't, so what my wife and kids still love me and I'll go home and be a dad and a husband and God's blessed me in so many ways that I'm just kind of along for the ride. I have no control of what really happens and just if the putts fall, great, if they don't, so be it. So I had a great day today, I'm going to go out there tomorrow and do my best and if I shoot 64 again, great. If I shoot 74, so be it. Q. So this is a new lease on your golf life? BLAKE ADAMS: Absolutely. I have a second chance. I played one legged for since 2007 and it's hard to ‑‑ these guys are really good, if y'all don't know, the guys out here I'm playing against. So it's hard to play with these guys slightly hurt. But when you've been told you need a total hip replacement, I mean it's just, it was pot luck every day of what I was given. I'm just blessed for the opportunity, obviously, and I play a game for a living. That's kind of silly anyway, but. Q. Talk about today. Obviously a little disappointing at the finish there, but was this the kind of round you thought that you might be able to play coming back right away or is that a function of this golf tournament? BLAKE ADAMS: I've worked hard. I have practiced really, really hard. I've shot some really low numbers. Back home. But like I said I had a speaker and country music blaring. All Monday I played in the pro‑am at La Quinta and it was the easiest 8‑under, I mean eight birdie, no bogey round maybe I played. I hit it really, really well. Obviously getting back under the gun I didn't hit it as well today as I would have liked. I hit some great shots and made some putts. The last putt was obviously disappointing, but I made some putts throughout the round that I probably shouldn't have, so. Q. 64, are you not surprised that you're not leading? BLAKE ADAMS: Out here? I don't know what's leading. Maybe if I was in 10th place that would be great if I was in first or 40th place, so be it. I'm just trying to play the best golf for me and like I said, just being back out here is awesome. I've always had that attitude of just hit it and go find it and add them up at the end. I don't really scoreboard watch. I could care less about that stuff. If I finish, if win, awesome. If I don't, try again next week. Q. Why didn't you do it in 2007? BLAKE ADAMS: I was broke first of all. I was ‑‑ you know, I've had so many injuries throughout my life and I never had surgery. I have torn rotator cuff front and back, torn my left one, I broke my left ankle. I've broken about every finger in my hands. Just really, really just beat up through the years. I've just never had surgery. It was just, I just it was just never in my mindset that even to have a surgery. I just looking back I obviously wish I had. But I wish I would have done a lot of things after I left college and done some things better. I'm 39 years old and I've wasted a lot of time, but I've got a great home life and a great family and golf is great, but it's definitely not in the top priority. Q. What is it about this tournament, these courses, these conditions, and in your experience, having played here, what is it that leads to scores like this and to days like this where it's a birdie harvest, basically? BLAKE ADAMS: This place is awesome. PGA was obviously great to the TOUR forever. That's why I come out here early it's ground how long day every day the weather is perfect. January the 4th, when I got here it's been the same exact, we had more wind today than we have had all the days combined. Greens are perfect. The staff does a great job. Everything's perfect out here. It's just a laid back atmosphere. We obviously have an event next week that's a little more chaotic a lot more, you know, just a little different atmosphere. I just think a lot of guys, this place is just special because it's not the first event of our new wrap around season but it's the first of this year and guys are rusty or not rusty however you see it they have gone to Hawaii or Maui, but it's just a real calm place. I'm a calm guy. Real laid back, but it's just nice to be out of the cold weather back home and the courses are great, the greens are perfect, and it's a laid back atmosphere having the amateurs with you and I always enjoyed that aspect of it. It's just fun. To me. Q. Is that why you had the country music blaring to prepare yourself for Phoenix next week? BLAKE ADAMS: Well, I'm actually not playing next week because I wanted to make sure that my hip was working and all that stuff. So that's kind of been my plan I'm going to take next week off, regardless of what happens this week, and then play Torrey Pebble and L.A. so, but, yes, Phoenix is a, it's a different animal, for sure. Q. Are you going to take it kind of on a week to week basis then, it's how I feel, it's how I'm hitting the ball, and kind of decide there go to the next week or take a week off and go two weeks down the road? BLAKE ADAMS: I think so. Well, yes and no. I obviously have the tournaments that I like and all that. But I see no reason why my hip will give me any issues from here forward. When I got here on January 4, my mindset was to just put it through the wringer. I was hitting balls at 7:15 and I would stop at dark. I mean, that's all I did. I just did ‑‑ I put it through the biggest test I've had and then see how I felt. Each day I would wake up and the only thing on my body that hurts is my hands. And let's go do it again. So it was awesome. It was such a blessing to be able to practice. Because I've, I have never been able to practice. Out here, I have had my therapy guys and I go see them an hour ahead of my tee time, they work on me, and as soon as I would finish around most guys would go practice, I would go right to the therapy trailer and then they would work on mow and try to get me at least upright where I could play the next day. But I kind of had my tentative schedule mapped out, obviously you play well and a lot of that stuff can obviously change, so. Q. With the new lease on life, how does that change your personal expectations or maybe some of the goals that you have now set, now knowing that you're a hundred percent healthy? BLAKE ADAMS: Yeah, it's a whole new ball game. It's exciting. But it also, like I said, I mean, I'm a dad and I'm a husband first and foremost. And it's something that I'm anxious to see how life is healthy. I played third to last group at my first make, the U.S. Open in 2012 or something like that and then finished 7th at the PGA and played well at the players. I either finished ninth or 10th, whatever it was. But I was limping around. That's all I've ever known out here. So, yeah, it's, I'm excited about it, to be able to go out and practice. There's so many things that like I can do better I didn't drive it well today, I had a wedge shot that was three yard from being really, really good and it was short and I ended up missing the green. But there's just so much that I can work on but I haven't been able to years past. So I'm excited. To go out and work on some things and just see where my new body can take me. MARK STEVENS: You still have that home‑made driving range at home. Tell the guys about that. And how much time you spent on there. BLAKE ADAMS: Yeah. Back years and years ago, I had this dirt road that I hit golf balls down. We live in a big city, it's 130 people with no red lights and so there was a dirt road and I had pine trees to the right and I had crops on the right or pine trees on the left, crops on the right. And it was a corner of cotton or whatever and peanuts. And so you had to hit it pretty straight or you would lose your golf ball. And a few years ago I had a buddy of mine that I grew up with actually build a practice area there. We ended up building a new house and planted pines and I have an artificial green and it's 20 yard by 30 yards and I got pins all in it. So it's a chipping area. And I got four tees and I have about a 15 yard wide fairway that I hit, hit balls down. So Jake, my son and I go down there and practice and just have fun. I live about, there's several golf courses in around me, but I drive about 40 miles to Georgia Southern University where they have two really good golf courses down there and I practice there a lot. But I stay at home and be with my family and that is a great practice area there at the house. It's a pretty cool deal. I have no reason to leave. To be honest. I have the last tee is 190 yards to the front and 220 to the back, which is basically what most of our par‑3's are out here. And then I've got I can hit drivers as far as I want down that ‑‑ I mean I got plenty of acres to hit drivers down the little 15 yard wide fairway. So it's pretty awesome. But it's home, so. Q. So does he shag balls? BLAKE ADAMS: We had to move him up. He hit one ball and about knocked out my shop window, but, so. JAKE ADAMS: That was a three wood and I was about four or three. BLAKE ADAMS: Yeah, it was a nice shot, but. MARK STEVENS: All right. Everybody good? Thanks for your time. BLAKE ADAMS: Thank y'all. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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