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A MILITARY TRIBUTE AT THE GREENBRIERSeptember 11, 2019Marc LeishmanWhite Sulphur Springs, West Virginia THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Marc Leishman to A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier. Mark, thanks for joining us. Just escaped the weather; played the pro-am. This is your sixth start here. Came here in 2010 was your first event. That was your best finish. Since then you haven't had a lot of success here. Tell us about coming back here and playing and what you've got to look forward this week at this event. MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, I mean, it's such a cool spot, not only the golf, but probably more so everything else there is to do at the Greenbrier. It's Audrey's favorite event, so she gets me here to play. Results haven't been what I would like, but this week I got here early. I've had trouble reading the greens here in the past so I've done a lot of work on the greens early in the week. Hopefully I can have a good week on the greens, and I think that'll certainly help my chances. No, it's a really cool spot. Great to be back. Excited for the week. THE MODERATOR: You've had another solid season making it the TOUR Championship, which is always a goal, and completing the season there and now we're starting a new season; later in the year we have the Presidents Cup, which is a big thing for you being in Australia. Talk about what your schedule is leading up to that and what you plan to play before you get Down Under. MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, going to play here, the Safeway Open in Napa, and then I will play the CJ Cup in Korea, Zozo in Japan. So four PGA TOUR events before the end of the year, and then the Australian Open and the Presidents Cup. So only six events left for the year in early September, so quiets down quite a lot. Try and give myself a bit of a spell, get the body right, and be ready for next year. But a lot of big tournaments coming up. It's so important now to get off to a good start early in the season. Was lucky enough to do that last year at the CIMB in Malaysia, and that's the plan again this year, is to try and get off to a good start. I would love to win a tournament in the four I'm playing, but more importantly just try and give myself a chance and just get a few FedExCup points so I don't feel like I'm behind the eight ball before we get to Hawaii. THE MODERATOR: You mentioned Audrey before. I wanted to touch on that. This month is World Sepsis Awareness Month. It's a very important situation for you with Audrey having had that condition. Just talk about that and your Begin Again Foundation. MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, we have got our foundation. Obviously Audrey got very sick over four years ago now, but with our foundation I guess it started out and still is about helping as many families as we can. That's the big thing we want to do. But as time has gone on we've realized that we think we can save more lives and make a bigger difference by raising awareness. It's something that a lot people haven't heard of, sepsis. It kills 270,000 Americans every year. Kills more children than pediatric cancer. So it's a really serious thing and a lot people don't know what it is. When Audrey got it I had to Google what it was. Something you never heard of you think can't be that bad, but it's pretty devastating. Yeah, it's important to us to raise awareness, try and make a difference. We're trying to help a lot of families with financial assistant and any way we can really. Our foundation has other lines that we do, but sepsis-wise it's about helping the families and raising awareness. I think it's every one hour that goes by that you have sepsis your chance of dying goes up by 8%. If it goes by for ten hours and you don't go to the hospital, you're pretty much done. Knowing the symptoms is very important. Audrey had it again since that but she got it early and antibiotics for a couple days and she's good to go. If you go to bed that night, you might not wake up, so definitely very important to just know the symptoms because it may save your life. THE MODERATOR: Can you just give us a quick example of something that and you Audrey have done together via the foundation to help raise awareness and funds for sepsis? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, we've got a golf day we do, Begin Again Celebrity Classic. It's been in May the last few years. Now we've moved it to April for next year. A lot of golfers come in, a lot of singers, basketball players, footballers, baseballers, people that I've met along the way. They're big supporters of the event, and we raised I think it was $415,000 this year. That helps so many families. That can help 400 families, potentially more. But I think we've helped I think it's quite a ways over 2000 families so far. There is a one line called the Leish Line. It's survivors of sepsis, toxic shock syndrome, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, all of which Audrey had. We give out $1000 grants, and they can use that for whatever they want pretty much. If they need to help pay their medical bills, or a lot of low income families, they might not be able to stay in the house. They might be struggling to pay the rent. When the medical bills come in, do you try and stay alive by paying them or pay the rent. We've helped keep people in their homes. I mean, we paid for a funeral of a girl who didn't make it. Her family couldn't afford to bury her. Just things we would prefer not to be doing, but that's what -- imagine that, having a family member pass away and you can't afford to give her a funeral. That's a pretty financially devastating thing. We are very lucky we were in a position that it didn't devastate us financially. A lot the people it does. Like I say, if you know the symptoms a lot of this can be avoided. That's a big thing for us, is looking up the symptoms. THE MODERATOR: Changing lives in a positive way. Let's have some questions for Marc. Q. I didn't realize Audrey had gotten it again. When was that? What was that like after almost losing her the first time? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, so was it very early. I was actually at the Bridgestone again. I was away. I'm talking about me and I should be talking about her. I was sitting at a bar having a burger with a friend. He came up for the weekend -- sorry, not for the weekend, early in the week. He's a superintendent, one of my best mates back in Virginia Beach. Audrey got me the call. Her doctor, she called her doctor and she's like, Look, this is happening. What do I do? He's like, Go straight to the ER. I'll meet you there. We're going to get on top of that. So got there and it was early stages, very early, but she knew the symptoms. So I remember sitting at the bar and I got the phone call. I remember I started tearing up. I was no good. Not again. But, yeah, like I say, she got it early and she was fine within a day or two. That's just an example of just know the symptoms. It can happen to not only girls but guys as well from any infection. Cut on your finger, you can get it from that. Yeah, again, I feel like I've said it a thousand times. Just know the symptoms and you'll be fine. More than likely be fine. Q. To ask you something happier I guess, can you talk about the Preseidents Cup in Australia and what it means to you to play on that team and what you think the international team's chances will be? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, since the qualification started it was a big, main goal of mine to, one, be on that team, but I guess be a leader of that team as well. This is my fourth Presidents Cup. It's a golf course that I know very well. I know a lot of guys on the team really well. It was important for me to cement my spot on that team early, which I did. I was pleased with how I did that. Yeah, that week is going to be amazing. The golf course is one of the best in the world. The crowds are going to be great. Going to be playing against a very strong American team. I think our team is shaping up pretty well. You know, we know we're going to have to play really well to give them a good run. Hopefully we can do that. There is no reason why we can't make it really close and hopefully come out on top at the end of the week. To do that, we're going to have to play very well. The Americans are strong again. Q. After serious discussions here I actually have a golf question. What have you liked about this golf course that's brought you back just from a competitive standpoint? You talked about the fun things. Do you like the golf course and what do you like about it? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, I think this year it's the challenge of playing on a golf course where I haven't done well in the past. You know, there are courses that you play that you don't -- either haven't played before in majors and you have to learn them. I guess I'm always trying to learn. I've always struggled on the greens here and I've done a lot of work on the greens early in the week to try and learn the breaks. I guess it's just the challenge of trying to get better along with all the other stuff. I want to get off to a good start early in the year. Being the first event of the year I feel like I really want to play it and I'm motivated to play well. A lot of reasons I want to play here. But, yeah, I think I need to prove to myself I can play well on any golf course. This is one that I think -- well, if we didn't have that thing come through before would've been really firm. Hopefully dries up again. I'm sure it will. It was playing very firm. It was tough. I think it's going to be a good week. Yeah, I guess the challenge is what brings me back. Q. Taking this opportunity for everybody that's coming in to ask whether they cared or not that the cut was moved from 70 to 65. Did you like that? Do you care? Does it matter? MARC LEISHMAN: I think it -- yeah, I mean, hopefully doesn't affect me, but I think it's not a bad thing to take away from the MDF. I think early in the year -- or not early in the year. When you see guys missing the cut by half a point you can see why they did it. If you have a bad Saturday, get cut by the MDF, you know, what's saying you couldn't go out and shoot 62 or 3 on Sunday and make a few extra points? You might only have to make an extra five points and be the difference between keeping your job and losing it. As long as you know going into the week the cut is going to be top 65 and ties I don't think it's going to make too much difference. I think if they said that Friday night after the cut it would be an issue. They obviously haven't done that. THE MODERATOR: Before we let you go, I don't know if you heard this, but out on the golf course they named the Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year. Rory McIlroy and Sungjae Im. I wanted to ask you about Sungjae, because you won the Rookie of the Year in 2009. Between and you Sungjae winning, there has only been one other international winner. How meaningful is that for him? Have you played with him? Just your thoughts on his game and potential pick for Captain Els at the Presidents Cup. MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, I have played with Sungjae. Great player. Very consistent. I think that's probably -- he didn't win, did he? THE MODERATOR: No. MARC LEISHMAN: I mean, getting to the TOUR Championship is obviously a big plus for that. And his consistency, I think he was by far the most consistent of the rookies all year. I don't think that's very surprising. I think you could have voted for either Brooks or Rory. I think it was almost a toss of a coin. Yeah, I mean, it's great that it was a close race. I think that's awesome. That says something for having two guys play that well. I'm sure it's going to motivate Brooks, which might not be a good thing. Yeah, I think that'll give him some motivation. He had an unbelievable year. He won a major. Just shows that the FedExCup really is a pretty heavyweight now. I think that's exactly what the TOUR wants. Congratulations to both Rory and Sungjae. THE MODERATOR: All right. Appreciate your time and good luck this week. MARC LEISHMAN: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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