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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO-AMFebruary 13, 2015Justin HicksPEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA Q. If you could, just talk about your strategy this week and just kind of give me an idea of ‑‑ I know you talked about it a little bit yesterday, but why you're all of a sudden playing so well. JUSTIN HICKS: Well, these courses aren't necessarily the longest courses we play, but they do require a lot of thought from the standpoint of you need to keep the ball in play reasonably out here, there's certain sides of certain holes that you have to avoid. Then really it's a course that you have to be thinking about where you want the ball to end up on the green. It's not always about hitting it close, necessarily, on the green with your approach shots, because you can have some treacherous putts. They got a lot of slope to them, they're old school greens they were designed when the Stimpmeter wasn't really known about, so having it in the right place on the greens can make a big difference as well at having a birdie opportunity out here. So really just got things started to click again and we're back to hitting the ball the way that I need to be hitting the golf ball. For me, I don't hit it as long as like J.B. or some of these other guys that hit it really long out here, so I got to do other things that make me effective. That typically is hitting the ball on the short grass, on the fairway, and then trying to attack pins that fit my eye and if it doesn't fit my eye, just put it in the middle of the green and try and make a 30‑footer. Q. The putting, these poa annua greens, is this something you're comfortable with? Would you attribute your good putting this week to maybe being like first out or what? Because I know that they can be tricky as the day gets on. JUSTIN HICKS: Yeah, no, there's nothing about it. You have to have a lot of patience with them. Last year when I was here I was having a really tough go with it. I think that I made a putter switch back at Phoenix, before I missed the cut there, and found a putter that for me seems to get the ball rolling hopefully more ideal than not. I think that this week it's definitely true to that as far as if you're not getting a good roll off the putter, it's very easy to beat the ball into the ground or get it hopping. And on poa annua, you need enough loft to get it above the kind of the buds that he this call it on top of the grass as it grows, but at the same time if you get it chipping a little bit, then you know it affects speed and things like that, too. So it's really important to have the ball rolling on poa annua and you just got to be patient with it. There's going to be times where you're going to hit putts and they're going to do some funny things and you have to find away to just tap the next one in and move along and say hopefully I'll make the next one, because it's not ‑‑ poa annua, it's interesting, it's really firm fast poa annua can be some of the best putting surfaces that there are. But most guys say that poa annua is not the best putting surface because as the day goes along they tend to get bumpier. Q. And then putter. What putter did you switch to? JUSTIN HICKS: I went to a Cameron Futura X 5 I think they call it or something. So, yeah, it's just for whatever reason, it just seems to get the ball up on top of the grass better than what I was using before. It's not quite as tall of a putter from the ground, so maybe having a little lower center of gravity, I'm not sure how it all works out, but I picked it up back at I think it was Palm Springs and it just kind of slowly grew on me and seems to be working pretty well so far, so we might have a hopefully, a partnership I can hold for a little longer, because purse can sometimes come and go in our hands and it's nice when you can find one that you really believe in and keep in your bag for awhile, so. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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