	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

VALSPAR CHAMPIONSHIP

March 8, 2017

Matt Kuchar

Palm Harbor, Florida

DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Matt Kuchar. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes before the start of the Pro-Am here at the Valspar Championship.

You are here making your 10th start in the Valspar Championship, and you've had good success, six Top-20 finishes in your previous nine starts. So with that said, just a few comments on being back here this week.

MATT KUCHAR: I think Innisbrook is one of my favorite courses we play throughout the year. It requires kind of all facets of the game to be working. It's such a unique course for Florida. They have got some great undulations and some nice elevation changes. Right now, the course is in as good of shape as I recall seeing the golf course. The greens are firm, roll beautifully.

I played nine holes yesterday and was really, really excited and pleased with the condition of the course and just getting back to a course that I enjoy so much, it's fun to being back.

Q. How does the course this year, the makeup, compare to years past? A lot of people we've talked to say it's probably the best in the last 20 years or so. I don't know how often you've been playing, I know the past few years, but could you tell a big difference from playing this week compared to years before?
MATT KUCHAR: We get spoiled week-in, week-out, with amazing conditions. I remember being a kid, sneaking out to the Bay Hill tournament and watching the tournament there. We'd park behind the sixth hole and we'd finish watching and sneak back under the ropes and walk on the course and always be like, I can't believe this course is conditioned so well. It was just perfect.

And now to be a TOUR player and to see week-in and week-out, we get very spoiled. But I think even for the TOUR pros that are spoiled, we come here and go, this place is looking really, really good.

I think that probably the biggest difference you'd see here versus a lot of the courses is the greens are quite firm this week. That's a tough thing to make happen, with as much work as you can put into a golf course, getting the greens firm is a challenge. Having the redo two years ago I think is why there's still that firmness.

I think the guys are looking forward to playing a course that is in this sort of shape.

Q. So you played last week in MÃ©xico. What are maybe the top three differences as far as what those two courses demand from you to play them well?
MATT KUCHAR: Accuracy off the tee, both here and there, critically important. There it was very, very tight off the tee. You could challenge it with driver; a lot of guys did. A lot of guys chose to play with irons off a lot of tees.

Here, you see a lot of variety of what guys hit off tees. But getting in the fairway, there's rough and there's trees that you don't want to be in, and with the greens being this firm, coming out of the fairway, being able to have some spin on your golf ball is very important. That would be the biggest similarity.

Quickness of greens. The greens last week were very, very quick, and these are rolling beautifully, as well. You have some similarity, you have some undulation; you don't have the altitude. I think it's pretty easy to go back to what everybody is used to, going the other way. I think not many people are used to playing at 7,000 feet. So pretty easy to bounce back and go back to normal distances.

Q. What does it do for a player focus-wise when you go to a venue, and par really means something?
MATT KUCHAR: Yeah, it is different. Par is certainly a good score around here. I don't know if mentality changes. I don't know if some guys accept the fact that they know they are going to make a couple bogeys here and there. You're kind of okay knowing that you don't have to go 6-under par a day and a couple bogeys here or there are not the hugest setbacks.

Like some weeks it feels a bit more like a Monday qualifier where you're just out racing every week to make as many birdies as possible. Here, you know, playing smart, when you can take advantage, it's good to, because you're going to have a couple holes that are going to hurt you a little bit.

So when you can't take advantage, it comes in handy, but I think the mentality is, just patience. Patience is kind of a big deal around here.

Q. Mike Davis spoke at a conference this week and he floated the notion of some day introducing a variable distance golf ball, where maybe professionals are playing the ball at 80 percent capacity. Do you feel like changes to the ball are part of the solution to stop the lengthening of modern courses and maybe bring some vintage courses back into play?
MATT KUCHAR: I don't know, I feel I'm going to play by whatever rules I'm told to play by and try to play the best I can.

The way it is right now, I understand or feel like they have drawn a line in the sand, and I feel like, pretty tough the last, what would you say, six, eight, ten years, there hasn't been a huge increase in distance the guys are hitting it.

Everybody's splitting hairs at the moment trying to make products better. I feel like they have done a pretty good job of drawing a line in the sand and saying, this is as far as we're going.

Going back, if they tell me we're going to dial it back, I'll figure out how to play with that golf ball. But other than that, I'm happy the way things are.

Q. A year later, you ended up getting to play with a guy who was not much older than you that won the Masters the previous year by 12 strokes. Can you remember where you were when you watched that 1997 Masters and what your thoughts were going through your head, and then maybe what you thought the next April when you were on the first tee, I think with Tiger, right?
MATT KUCHAR: That's right. I was in my freshman year at Georgia Tech. I think we were all in awe of what this young Tiger Woods could do. He was already impressive and to watch him dominate the field at Augusta National, I think it had everybody pretty captivated. It was awfully exciting.

Q. What did you think the next year when you were on the first tee with him?
MATT KUCHAR: That was such an amazing honor to get paired with him. It's so exciting to have a guy of kind of similar in age that I could relate to, could talk to.

I remember the walk to the first tee, I remember walking from the putting green and they rope off the fans, and it used to be a much longer walk than it is now. It used to be a much longer walk. I'd say it was 20 yards back then and ten yards now, or maybe it was 30 yards back then, and it felt like a tunnel of people.

Tiger had already made his way to the tee box and there was just a huge ovation, and I was just this young amateur kid. Figured I'd kind of sneak up without anybody noticing, and I got an amazing ovation. We had a great day. I think I was, at first nervous, at first intimidated to be alongside Tiger, but he was easy to talk to, easy to play with.

I remember a funny story on the first hole. Pin was back and he hit it over the green in two, and that was my first time playing the Masters. My course knowledge was limited. But I certainly knew that you didn't hit it over the back of the first green with a back pin. I knew there was no chance of getting up-and-down. And I tapped my dad who was caddying and I said, I can't believe he hit it there, that's just a cardinal sin. You can't get up-and-down.

And he hit this pitch shot, I'll never forget, it finished two feet away for a tap-in par. I thought, there's no chance you can get it within 15 feet. He had amazing abilities.

Q. Speaking of rules, I don't know if you've had time to digest some of the proposed rules changes. Get your general thoughts, I guess what they are trying to do with some of the rule changes, speeding up the game a little bit.
MATT KUCHAR: I think one of the tough things about the game is the complexity of the rules. I think if you wanted to, you could stump me a hundred ways on rules questions. I do this for a living. I think I know the rules better than most.

However, it's a complex game. I think it's tough to really simplify them because of all the awkward things that do come up in the game of golf, particularly the professional game of golf that makes it come up. I think it's great to try to simplify them. I think most people, they go out and play, play generally by the rules.

I have tons of friends that fudge here and there. You want the game to be enjoyable, and simplifying the rules I think only helps make the game more understandable, more enjoyable. It's a good idea they are working on.

Q. Seeing what Dustin went through in The Open and as a professional, were you concerned about how that reflects on your game, a game you take a lot of pride in; but that was such a huge distraction.
MATT KUCHAR: It was. I'm glad it turned out the way it did. It certainly could have been far worse. I think the USGA has taken note and trying to make a change there and trying to make sure that doesn't happen in the future. It certainly could have been really bad. It was bad for them; it could have been far worse. I'm glad they are fixing it.

DOUG MILNE: We appreciate your time, as always.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297