|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 26, 2019Billy HurleyPeter MalnatiAvondale, Louisiana Q. Let's talk about the strategy change you had from last year playing foursomes when you didn't make it to the weekend, and this year you have a new strategy. PETER MALNATI: Yeah, I don't know if I'd really say that, but last year we really did pretty much do our own thing. We do this 51 weeks a year, let's not change too much, I'll work with my caddie, you work with your caddie, and this year we tried to embrace the team aspect, and we talked about shots together and we kind of planned together sort of. But two minds is better than one kind of philosophy, and A, it's been a lot of fun, and B, obviously it's working. Q. Take us into some of the insight. What are some of the small intricacies you're looking at with ball flight differences and just what shots you're trying to shape. BILLY HURLEY: Yeah, absolutely. I think any time two players can talk about a shot, you're going to come up with a better solution than just one player, so there's obviously a lot of things going on with the wind out there today and how much it's going to bounce on the ground with the greens changing throughout the course of the round and the rain we had yesterday. Just talking about where we wanted to leave it, where the best putt was, how much the wind is going to affect it, that kind of thing. Q. 36 holes is exhausting for anyone. What has today been like? PETER MALNATI: I mean, obviously it's a lot of fun to play well. You play well in a day that doesn't feel as long, but I'll tell you what, I'm about -- I'm going to call it maybe our 28th or 29th hole, as we were making the turn, my legs were tired. I know Billy and I both, most of the guys out here, are into our conditioning and it's important, but you're not prepared to be on your feet walking for what we were today, 10 hours or more, with warm-up more than that. It's a long day. Q. The reason why you all played together is because you were his mentor back in the early days. How special is it to be able to have this team format and spend your quality time together while you're trying to aggressive and play well? BILLY HURLEY: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Peter and I first met right when I got out of the Navy and right when Peter graduated from college, and we kind of played mini-Tours together, and then I got out here and he got out here a couple years later, so we've been friends ever since, and it's been a lot of fun to do the team thing. PETER MALNATI: Yeah, it's so much fun. It's fun to team up. One week a year we're actually rooting for someone else out here other than just ourselves. Q. Leading right now, but there's still a wave out on the golf course. Pretty happy with your play, obviously? BILLY HURLEY: Yeah, absolutely. I think the greens got -- we'd love to have a couple of putts back late on our second nine today, but playing 36 holes and stuff, the greens definitely got kind of scruffy a little bit and harder to make putts, so we're super thrilled with pretty much every shot I think we hit today. Q. What did you think you guys did the best today? PETER MALNATI: What we did today that was really, really important is we probably didn't hit -- there's lots of places we could go, look, I wish I could hit this shot a little bit better, that shot a little better, but there's very few shots we hit today as a team like man, that's a lousy shot. We were just consistent and solid, and I think we had a really good plan on every shot, and we executed quite well, too. Just in general, just good, solid golf today. That made it a lot of fun. Q. This course hasn't exactly treated either of you very well in the past. How did you come into this week trying to maintain a positive approach? BILLY HURLEY: I think we changed our mindset this week and just said, we're going to have fun and we're going to kind of do a team, we're going to kind of -- instead of Billy playing his golf and Peter playing his golf, we're going to play Peter and Billy together and we're just going to have fun, and we did that starting on Tuesday in the practice rounds and kind of just doing that and starting to play together and be a team and just embrace the fun of the week of being able to do that. Q. Do you feel like it's a course that you should play well at? Does it fit your eye? BILLY HURLEY: I think any time you hit as many good shots as we hit today, it doesn't matter where you are, but in general I don't think either one of us would say this was the greatest course for us, but the greens are normally really good and we're both good putters. PETER MALNATI: At the end of the day, every player that's on the PGA TOUR can come out and play well and do well on every course the PGA TOUR plays. There's certainly courses that benefit certain styles of play more than others, but I think -- Billy and I are both more than -- this course tends to favor guys that can hit it a little farther, I think, because it's fairly wide and there are some long holes, but we both hit it plenty far enough. Certainly, you're right, my record here is terrible. I've never seen Saturday here, and I don't think he's ever seen Sunday. I didn't come into this week thinking, oh, man, oh, man, it's such a hard course. I just came in thinking, oh, man, I've played lousy here every year but I'm not going to this year. I'm ready. I think I was due, and we were collectively due. So yeah. Q. Is there a moment today, 36 holes that you played, that you guys really felt like, man, it's nice to be a team out here today? PETER MALNATI: I'm going to answer that one. There was a moment today where we had a little interestingly weird bad luck on our first hole of the day. I hit a great sand wedge that one-hopped into the flag and came back like 40 feet from the hole, and then we read -- he had a good wedge in there and had probably a seven-foot putt that we read together and we were sure of what it was doing and it didn't do it, so it didn't go in. So we didn't make the birdie on 1. And then on 2 we both hit some good first and second shots. We were up near the green in two. He had a tough pitch, I had a pretty easy pitch. I hit a lousy pitch, he hit an okay pitch, and we had 15-footers for birdie, I missed, he made. If we come out of the first two holes as good a shots as we had hit and didn't have a birdie, I think we would have been like, oh, geez. For him to make that putt, I was so glad I had a partner. I was so glad he made that putt, and I think that got our day going. That was important. Q. You guys talked about having a lot of fun. Last year you had a lot of fun as volunteers here at the Zurich Classic. Do you remember that? Now that you're elevated on the leaderboard tomorrow, you might have fans that recognize you that didn't recognize you last year. Can you just talk about that experience a little bit and what it was like for you last year? PETER MALNATI: Yeah, it's kind of fun to do something like that, but my first reaction when Billy asked me, hey, Peter, this has come up, do you want to do it. My first reaction was, Billy, that would be a lot funnier if people would recognize us when we took our disguises off because people don't know who we are anyway. It's not going to be that funny. But maybe they will after this week. BILLY HURLEY: Yeah, it was funny. We had a good time with it. Probably the best was kind of fooling around with a couple of players really because then they actually like figured out who you were versus the actual -- fans had no idea who we were. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|