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WGC CADILLAC MATCH PLAYApril 29, 2015Marc LeishmanSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA CANDACE REINHEIMER: Marc Leishman in the interview room. Finished 3 & 2 over Justin Rose. Why don't we talk about how it feels to take down one of the world's best, and winner last week at Zurich. MARC LEISHMAN: It was a good day to me. Got off to a good start birdieing the first and holed a good par‑putt on the second hole to half the hole. And then it flowed from there. Really happy for the day, drove the ball well and putted pretty well. Rosie probably missed a few putts he could have made. But that's golf. And really happy to win the first match. Q. You kind of had to make them when you had to make them, and that was the important part. When there were moments to happen you stepped up and got it done? MARC LEISHMAN: Yes, there were definitely moments when momentum could have changed if I missed certain putts. I can't remember the exact holes. But, yeah, I holed the putts that I had to hole. When I missed the shot or missed a green, I got it up and down. And that's I guess what you have to do. If you make a mistake, you can't back it up with another mistake. So that was probably the difference is I holed the putts that kept the momentum on my side and Rosie probably didn't make the putts that could have switched it. I was lucky in that respect. But I still needed to play well and, like I say, get that first win on the board. It's a different format, don't really know what it's going to take, but what you do know is that if you win three matches you'll be three through. That's what I'm planning to do, hoping to do. But it's going to be a tough match tomorrow against Ryan. I'll have to play as good as I did today, if not better, to beat him. It's the first step of hopefully many. Q. Can you update us on how your wife is doing, and where all that stands and just what she might have to still go through? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, she's doing really well, actually. It wasn't looking very good at all there a few weeks ago. But her rehab has gone really well. She's ahead of schedule. She's got all the tools that she needs to get better. She's got a really good physical therapist and all the doctors that have helped her through the hard part of ‑‑ haven't decided that they're going to push her aside because she's better. They're‑‑ she's still better. She's still got a couple of issues, but no life‑threatening ones, so that's good. My perspective and her perspective has changed a little bit on what is good news and what is bad news. If she gets told that something is up and it's not going to kill her, that's good news. She's doing really good, and she's actually going to come down to THE PLAYERS next week. She won't be able to walk around the course probably at all. But she's going to come down and we're renting a house on the beach. She's going to treat it as a bit of a holiday. It's going to be a fun week to have her and the boys there, have us all together. This is the second week I've been away. It's hard to be away, but it's good that she's well enough for me to be a way. Q. I know you talked about this a little bit last week, but how much is this perspective helping your golf? Obviously last week and if at all today? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, once I knocked the rust off last week, it seemed to help it. That first round wasn't too pretty. But after that it's just‑‑ you look at‑‑ well, I've always had a decent perspective on golf. But I think sometimes you get into a mindset where you take it too seriously, like it's a life and death situation. And I've just been through a real one of those. So I know that golf isn't life and death anymore. If I don't pull a shot off, it doesn't matter. It's not going to affect my life. I might make a bogey or double bogey or whatever, but it's not going to do anything for my life. It's not going to be good for my scorecard. I can be a bit more aggressive now feeling that at the moment I'm playing pretty well. There's a good chance I'll pull it off and if I don't, I had a crack and try to do it on the next hole. It's been a great thing for my perspective on golf. It's really good it to be just out here on the golf course. I'm really trying to make the most of it. Hopefully my perspective stays like this forever. Q. Just sort of more on that, is it sort of completely freed you up, I don't want to say you don't care, but kind of don't care, you know what I mean, it's going to be one of those situations where this will never be the most important thing, even if your mind, right? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, it is. And obviously it's a big part of my life, golf, because it's my career and it's how I put food on the table for my family. But if I don't play well, and obviously I do want to play well, but if I don't I can still put food on the table. I can still go home and hug my wife, which I didn't think I was going to be able to do a few weeks ago. I can still go home and hug my kids and they still all love me. It's been a real eye opener the last month. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I really feel like that. I feel like especially Audrey, she's fought so hard to just be alive. And I feel like I owe it to her to be out here doing my best. But I don't want to take it any home with me, apart from trophies, baggage from the golf course. I don't want to go home and be in a bad mood or do that because I'm happy that she's here and that we can spend our lives together again, which didn't look like it was going to happen. Q. Is she sort of able to watch this week or is that sort of against doctors orders? MARC LEISHMAN: No, she's fine. Well, she's not fine. She's doing really well. She's up walking around. She can get up and down the stairs. She still can't lift the kids, but the doctor said that it's going to take her a few months to get back to close to where she was. So just for her to be able to do that from where she came from so quickly is pretty impressive. So, yeah, she can watch. I think she watched a bit of it last week. She's already sent me a text this morning just congratulating me and all that. Every time I get a text off of her, it's sort of like, that's pretty cool. It's still sort of‑‑ not sinking in, but it still feels really good that she's‑‑ it's kind of a bit of ‑‑ I guess it's so close to‑‑ as close as we were to losing her, it still feels really cool that I can get text messages off her and just do that. It's just cool to have her around. I hope it stays that way forever. Q. And secondly, did the boys‑‑ I know one of them is too young to sort of know what's going on. But how tough was that on the oldest and how did you handle that? MARC LEISHMAN: It was pretty rough. He was‑‑ I'm always away with golf, obviously. And if Audrey is ever away, it's normally with me. She might go away for a weekend with the girls. But if she's ever away for like longer than a couple of days, it's normally with me, and Harvey will go with his grandparents or his uncles, which we've only done a couple of times. But he knew something was up when only she was gone and I was kind of at home. I wasn't really there. I was at the hospital or when I wasn't home, I was a bit of a mess. But he'd be saying, "I want my mommy, I want my mommy," and he'd start crying. And when it was really bad and it didn't look like Audrey was going to make it, I'd start crying. It was just rough. So that's something that you don't really want a three‑year‑old see. You don't ever want to see your dad crying. He saw a bit of that the last couple of weeks, while Audrey was sick. He knew something was up. He's had a bit of a hard time with it. But he's starting to come good. He's young, so he'll get back to where he was. Kids adjust. It hit him pretty hard. But his mom is still here, so that's good. Q. The downside of being an independent contractor like you guys are is that it's not like your ranking gets frozen while you're dealing with these situations. It's like everything moves on. How do you balance that, knowing that you've still got to earn your place in these events, qualify for big tournaments, with wanting to‑‑ having this different perspective that this isn't the be all and end all? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, that was actually pretty hard. I obviously never had much of a chance to play at Augusta and Hilton Head. And I think I had four weeks off in a row. So it's hard to see your ranking go down, your FedExCup, you're sliding down the list a lot of spots every week. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had got off to a decent start in the year, but I played terrible. But it was at a point where my mum actually stayed for an extra week from Australia, she actually just flew home two days ago. So I was able to go to New Orleans to kind of blow out the cobwebs and get ready for this week. And just the support we've had has been pretty awesome from everyone. So that's why I was able to get out last week and be in decent form this week. Because if I played like I played last Thursday, I would probably have been walking off on the 10th. It was pretty embarrassing how bad I played. Again, it was just good to be out on the golf course. Q. I'm sorry, I'm not sure if you discussed this at all, but do they know how this happened? Obviously it sounds like it was very sudden and kind of out of nowhere. Have they given you any of that detail or information? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, yeah, we know what happened. It started‑‑ well, she thought she had the flu. And that's been pretty well publicized. She thought she had the flu. She started out with strep throat and that turned to pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. And then she had‑‑ also had a bladder infection which turned into, I think, sepsis and toxic shock syndrome. Basically what happened is her lungs filled with fluid so she couldn't breathe. Not get enough oxygen to her blood, so she'd be talking and basically falling asleep in her sentence, because she couldn't breathe. I guess your lungs are like sponges and they were full of fluid. And then the sepsis and toxic shock syndrome, that puts a toxin into your blood and actually turns your blood toxic, which started to shut down all of our organs. Her heart was really weak. I think her blood pressure was 90/30 at one point. It was shutting down her kidneys, her liver, all her organs were just‑‑ yeah, not good at all. So things weren't looking good for her. But probably if you had one of those things, the acute respiratory distress syndrome or sepsis or toxic shock, they can kill you by themselves, and she had them all at once. So, yeah, she was really, really sick. But, you know, she's young, strong and got a real will to live for our two boys and me, I guess. And we're building a new house at the moment. She had‑‑ she's got a lot to look forward to, and I guess that's why she fought so hard and was strong and got through it somehow. So it was pretty unlikely that she was going to, but she's done an awesome job. And we're all still happy to have her around. Q. Your countryman, Jason Day, was in here yesterday talking about how it actually helps to develop a bit of an edge when you play match play. I'm curious, do you ever feel like you can be too nice in match play to succeed? MARC LEISHMAN: Me? I've got a bit of, you know, whatever, how can I say what I want to say (laughter), yeah, I guess you can be, but I'm a really competitive person. I don't like getting beaten, especially on the one‑to‑one thing. Golf, you play against 155 guys every week. Q. Is it easier for you to summon that hard edge in a match play situation when it is just sort of man‑on‑man? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, I mean‑‑ I suppose it's easier to get to the man‑on‑man situation in match play. That's what it is: You against your opponent. In stroke play that doesn't happen generally until the back nine on a Sunday, unless you get ahead early on. But I just love that competitiveness, being one‑on‑one. I'm going to win or you're going to win. I don't want you to win. It's going to be‑‑ there's two guys, and either one of you can win. So I want that to be me, as the other guy wants it to be him. That's just‑‑ I don't think you can‑‑ it's not‑‑ it is a different game, match play, but it's not like you're out there playing tennis. It's still golf. You've still got to get the ball in the hole. And the bloke who plays better is generally going to win. Yeah, it's a little bit different perspective, but you've still just got to‑‑ it's one‑on‑one, yeah. CANDACE REINHEIMER: Marc, thank you for your time. We're glad to hear your wife is doing much better. MARC LEISHMAN: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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