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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 10, 2016

Rickie Fowler

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

ALEX URBAN: We would like to welcome Rickie Fowler to the interview room here at THE PLAYERS, defending champion. Obviously your finish last year was historic. The 11 shots you took over the last four holes was a tournament record. Of the first three hole aggregate playoff in tournament history, you birdied the 17th three times on Sunday. There's a lot of superlatives around your victory here. Talk about what it means to be back here and defending at THE PLAYERS Championship.

RICKIE FOWLER: Well it's definitely special to be back. Feels like coming back home. I was here just over a month ago for media day and I got to spend a little time around 16, 17 and 18, and it was fun to go out there and get around the course for the first time since last year.

It's just fun to be back. I'm looking forward to final day tomorrow of getting ready for the tournament, and yeah, last year is last year. We'll focus on this week now.

ALEX URBAN: Open it up for questions.

Q. I think it is your sixth or seventh start here and you obviously won last year. Do you have any kind of an educated guess as to why it's been so hard to win two in a row here?
RICKIE FOWLER: Well, it's one of the toughest courses we play all year. Probably the toughest field that we play all year. So you got to be -- I mean whoever is winning is taking care of business, beating the best players at the time and conquering one of the toughest courses that we play. So I think it is a combination of both. You have to be pretty spot on. It's a very fine line at this golf course. The targets and the driving areas are very small and the greens are -- you don't have much room, and like I said, you're playing against the best players in the world, so someone's got to break it at some point, though, so we'll see what we can do.

Q. Today you Justin, Jordan and Smylie were out there playing. Tell me your mindset on these Tuesdays when you're out there. You've still got one more day of practice, but how do you approach Tuesdays and you guys were having fun out there a little bit but also doing some work?
RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, early in the week, the kind of more it's easygoing, having fun out there, the better, just getting for the most part reacquainted with the golf course. Nothing too serious, kind of checking to see where the game's at, what can be worked on. Tomorrow get a little more serious and make sure things are where you want them going into Thursday, but there's no reason to stress out too much or put too much worry on the game early in the week. I mean, I try not to worry too much about where my ball's going or what's happening early in the week. It's a big difference Tuesday from when it is your tee time on Thursday. Ball speed goes up. There's a big difference from practice to tournament play. So it's nice to go out and have fun and kind of ease into the week, at least that's the approach that I've always taken and it's fun.

It's a long year out here, so it's -- you can always be on the grind. So it's fun to get out with some buddies and I think first time we have all been back together since we got back from the Bahamas.

Q. When you look at the elation that was delivered with your finish here last year, such great finish and contrast it with a Sunday like last week in Charlotte where it didn't go right, how much can golf kind of put you through an emotional wringer?
RICKIE FOWLER: I mean it's constant every day. One day you hit it perfect and the next day you can't hit it on the map and maybe the day before you didn't make any putts and you hit it perfect, yet that next day you make everything but you're playing out of the trees all day. It's always an emotional roller coaster. If it was an easy game, there would be a lot more people competing at a high level. But I think it's just like any other professional sport in a way; at the highest level it's such a fine line between playing great golf and being just off.

I think as golfers you have to -- if winning is your only measure of success, it's going to be a long road, just because you don't win often. There's I think a lot of other ways that you have to kind of setting goals and understanding that, like I say, if you looked at just winning tournaments was the only way to succeed, yeah, it's -- you're going to be in the dumps all the time. I think Tiger had one of the best winning percentages and that was what? 30 at some point? I think if anyone gets in the double digits that's pretty stellar now. So, yeah, it's tough. It's a mental game out here for sure.

Q. 16, 17 and 18 get so much attention, and you did that last year. Can you cite the first 15 holes a key hole for you or something that you encountered the first 15 holes?
RICKIE FOWLER: They're all key. I talked about it earlier, as far as this course being a tight and narrow driving golf course, the greens being small and still sectioned off, so it's a very fine line on this golf course from being in a good position and absolutely dead.

Last year a key hole for me was 12. That's one of the shortest holes out here as a par-4, and if I don't make four there or get my second shot on the green, I don't have a chance to do what I did.

Q. Thinking about your finish here last year, what qualities or attributes do you think that all the good closers share?
RICKIE FOWLER: Well, for me, looking back to last year, and kind of I guess seeing or watching other guys kind of close out events, I think patience is a big key. I haven't won a Major yet, but I would assume that having the patience and being able to kind of just hang around not make many mistakes, continue moving forward. You look at especially like a U.S. Open, that's probably one of the biggest things on a week like that is having patience on one of the toughest setups, and you have to look at a place like this, as well, the way it's set up and playing against the best players in the world. I think the more patient you can be, the better.

Q. Do players have to have a killer instinct to be a good closer?
RICKIE FOWLER: I don't think so. I did okay here last year.

Q. Jason was in here earlier today and said he would not be using driver a lot. He's going to use a lot of 3-woods. He's going to use the occasional iron off the tee. I know last year you used driver on 18 and were very successful with it. What clubs do you plan to use this year and how many times will you hit driver, that kind of thing?
RICKIE FOWLER: I don't know the exact numbers. I do hit driver quite a bit around here. But there are a handful of 3-woods. I guess if I think through it's mainly driver and 3-woods for me. But I don't know the exact numbers.

Q. What holes?
RICKIE FOWLER: What's that?

Q. Like do you use driver on hole?
RICKIE FOWLER: Driver 1, 2, 3-wood on 4, driver 5, 3-wood 6, driver 7, driver 9, 3-wood 10, driver 11, 3-wood 12, driver 14, 15, 16, 18. And we shot 67. We're off to a good start. (Laughter.)

Q. Your results have run the gamut here. What have you learned most after playing this layout different years, or is it just a matter of just whatever week you just happen to be on and that's the difference between missing a cut or winning the tournament?
RICKIE FOWLER: I mean, being around here, having some course knowledge definitely helps, but more so if you're on top of your game makes it a lot easier. If you're driving the ball well, it frees you up a lot more to actually be able to hit the greens and have control of the golf ball going into the greens. You start missing fairways, then you're hitting it into some funky lies around greens and it's just tough to play this golf course from anywhere but the fairway and the green, so I feel like the combination of knowing the golf course a bit better and also growing as a golfer and continuing to get better a bit more efficient and better at controlling my game when I'm not completely on over the past couple years has definitely been a big key to playing better these past few years.

Q. After your success on 17 particularly on Sunday, do you envision anything changing for you that walk from 16 to 17, the anticipation or anything that maybe you dealt with before leading up to this year?
RICKIE FOWLER: Not much. Leading into last year I had played 17 well. I hit a lot of quality shots there, I made a lot of birdies there. I had a lot of confidence on 17 going into last year. Last year it definitely didn't hurt that. Hitting the shots that I did under the pressure and the situation, yeah, it's only going to help. I look forward to 17, just because it's a fun hole to play. No matter what the wind's doing, it's always interesting. Hey, you got to be spot on there, so it demands a lot out of the shot.

Q. James Hahn was in here earlier talking about how there's really a huge difference between your first PGA TOUR victory and then getting the second one, and last year you had been stuck on one for awhile then you win THE PLAYERS and all of a sudden, Scotland, Boston, Abu Dhabi. Do you put any more pressure on -- the more you win, do you put more pressure on yourself do you think to win the next one?
RICKIE FOWLER: I don't think you put more pressure. I think you have the expectations. I know after this win last year, just I talked about having more confidence and the belief when I was back in kind of in contention at the next events, just how comfortable I felt, and it was a lot more fun being back in that situation because I knew what I was up against. I knew I could take care of business. And it was obviously -- James played well over the weekend and to give himself a chance there on Sunday and getting the win in the playoff. I wish I could have given myself a little better chance. But no, it's fun winning out here. It's a lot of fun when you get to spend some late Sunday nights in the media center, so it's I think -- like you said, I don't know if it's any extra pressure, I think it's just that expectation and you want to get back in that position again.

ALEX URBAN: All right. Good luck defending your title this week.

RICKIE FOWLER: Thanks.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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