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U.S. MID-AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIPSeptember 19, 2019Lukas MichelAurora, Colorado Q. We're here with 2019 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, Lukas Michel. How does that sound to you? LUKAS MICHEL: Sounds unbelievable. Sounds almost too good to be true. Yeah, I guesses it will sink in in the coming hours or days. But, yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to what comes with it in the future for my golf. Q. Can you believe all that does come with it? First of all, you're going to be playing at Winged Foot next year in the 2020 U.S. Open. LUKAS MICHEL: Well, I wore a Winged Foot sweater for the first nine holes today. Played there last year. Just a casual round with a member, someone I knew. So I guess I've got an early look at the course there. Yeah, I mean, that's unbelievable. I mean, many, many golfers, the best in the world, don't get the opportunity to play a major, let alone the U.S. Open. Yeah, can't wait. Q. Let's talk about this match today. You had to come from behind and you've been in some matches all week where it's gone back and forth like this one did. LUKAS MICHEL: Yep. Q. Like the others, how did you keep focused when you get behind like that? LUKAS MICHEL: I mean, I tried to explain this yesterday and I kind of struggled. I don't know. I can't explain it. Just all week I've been feeling really relaxed. It's just felt easy, especially on the greens. My putting has been great. So I guess when I got closer to the hole the more confident I got. I don't know. Yeah, just kind of happened. But, yeah, I guess it probably has something to do with the family I'm staying with, looking after me really well. Just having a good night's sleep and relaxing and enjoying it with my caddie, Will Davenport, who has done a great job. He played in the tournament. He got knocked out in the round 64 by Stewart Hagestad actually. Ever since then him being on the bag I think he's been a real calming influence. I'm not really sure. Q. Can you talk about being the first foreign champion of this championship? No. 2, the decision of the USGA to change the exemption category to allow you to get into this field at all. So two parts. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, I mean, being the first international to win, I mean, it's a massive thing. Being the first of anything to win something is always great, a great feeling. And American golf is the best golf in the world. There is no question about it. So coming over and playing great golf and beating a really strong field of mostly America's best mid amateurs. I mean, that's everything. And the world's best mid amateurs now because of that new exemption criteria. Obviously makes the field stronger and harder to win and all that, but I'm obviously happy that that exemption category was added. I think it makes the event stronger and I think that's got to be a positive thing. Q. Would you have tried to qualify had you not had an exemption? LUKAS MICHEL: No, I wouldn't. It just doesn't make sense. It's a 24-hour flight to t Australia for four spots out of 100 or whatever it tends to be. Yeah, it's a long way. I think I was over in June to play some other tournaments, but I think the qualifiers were all in August. So, yeah, just didn't make sense. Q. You didn't play in the Am? LUKAS MICHEL: Didn't play in the Am. I tried qualifying for that actually but didn't get through that. Q. Let's talk about the last part of this match, because obviously a lot of things happened today. The last part of the match was the key to winning. I guess let's just start at 14. The match is tied. LUKAS MICHEL: Yep. Q. He's in there with a chance to make eagle on 14. Tell us about that putt around the bunker. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, so it's a bit of a famous green that one, the boomerang green. I played at Sand Hills last week and I think the No. 8 hole there has a boomerang green. I think I remember reading somewhere that there is always a way to get around the boomerang. If you're on the wrong side of it, there is always a way around. I got up to the ball and looked at it and I kind of thought, Okay, I think I can make this work. I hit a perfect putt. It went, I can't remember, five, six feet past, whatever it was, and then had to make a good comeback to halve the hole. Then obviously got to the 15th tee. It almost felt look I won that hole because I was almost kind of conceding him to maybe eagle it or maybe three-putt. To step away with a halve there was good. And then 15 I hit a pretty good tee shot. It just ran through into the rough. Got a little bit of a flyer out of that rough there, which was hard to control. So I went through the green. Q. What club did you hit there? LUKAS MICHEL: Hit pitching wedge. Yeah, pitching wedge. So it was probably 150 yards but a little bit downwind, firm greens, so many things to take into account at the moment with the firmness of the greens, the wind, 10% for the elevation, everything. So I just hit it through the green. Q. That's sea level? LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah. I work at sea level. So pretty much all week I've just been taking 10% off my yardages. Hit it through the green there; didn't get a great lie. It was a tough chip because the lie was so bad. Hit it down, ran sort of through, past the pin. I think the putt that I holed there, the 12-footer or 10-footer, whatever it was, I felt like that was the real crucial moment of the match. I turned it around and holed a really, really good putt. That kind of got me fired up for the last three holes. Q. The next hole you took kind of a different route. Went up the right side. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, been doing that all week. Sort of played my practice rounds with Will, my caddie. He obviously played, and he took it up the right during the tournament, stroke play, and then I took it up the left in the stroke play and one of the match play rounds because I was a couple up. I think in match play when you kind of got something to win, I think it just pays off to go down the right. The angle into the green, you basically can't hit the green from the left side. Joe showed that in the morning when he hit a pretty good shot and ran through into the bank on the water. Didn't go into the water but it was on the bank. I kind of figured if I want to make birdie -- well, if I want to give it a good chance of making a birdie, I've got to go down the right and get the better angle. I guess it paid off, yeah. Q. What did you have into the hole, because obviously the ball ran through the green to the back fringe? LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah. So I hit a 6-iron from the split fairway. I had whatever -- so many different calculations. But I think it was right about 220 meters, which is probably 245 yards. But, you know, everything accounting, firm greens and all that, it ran out and kept, kept running. So I think it landed probably a third of the way, quarter of the way up the green and just ran through, just through the back. I had a pretty good lie up against the fringe or against the first cut of rough. I hit a really nice dead-weight putt to about a foot and that was conceded. Q. How much break was on that? LUKAS MICHEL: The one from over the back the green? Q. Yeah. LUKAS MICHEL: It was almost in the spot where it was a bit of a saddle. So it turned hard left early, but then held most of its line the rest. It was probably only like two and a half feet break. It was more the speed that was crucial on that one. It was kind of an awkward lie, and then judging the speed, coming through a little bit of fringe, and then off a down slope and it almost went uphill at the end. There was a lot of different factors. Q. You've got a 2-up lead, and what is your thought process as you step to the tee on 17? LUKAS MICHEL: I mean, I was obviously feeling nerves, feeling the tension, as anyone would. Walked up the hill. Just tried to reset, think about the shot I need to play. Got a yardage, and then the wind was sort of swirling. Was awkward kind of because there was a bit of like a tornado on the previous green, then so it was really swirling. Will and I thought it was downwind and then we kind of threw some grass up for a little bit and it kept blowing into the face. But I had to trust that that a 9-iron was going to be enough to carry the front bunker. Hit a really nice shot in. Landed a little past the pin probably because I gave it a little extra thinking the wind was potentially going to be into my face. So hit it probably 25 -- probably 30 feet past pin high, which to that pin was still a really good shot. Joey hit it in 12, 15 feet. And then I had a first putt; it just broke a lot more than I thought, leaving me about three feet, leaving Joe an opportunity to win the hole, which he didn't make. I then had to hole my three-footer to win, which was probably the most nerve-wracking putt of my life. Because three footers for the win with all that on the line, as much as I try and not think about it. It's pretty hard not to. So, yeah, somehow lipped it in right edge, and, yeah, then went and ran up and hugged Will. Q. Well you jumped pretty high, too. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah. I didn't want to damage the greens, but they were so firm I don't think I could. Q. There was an awkward moment because he missed the putt and took his hat off. Did you think he had conceded? LUKAS MICHEL: With the length of it I was like really confused. That putt is not a conceded putt. But he came up, shook my hand, and said -- I think he said like, Sorry. That's not good. I thought it was shorter, or something like that. I was like, Okay. Well, you know, reset here. Like not sure what was going on with that. I just had to reset and still holed the putt. Q. (Indiscernible.) LUKAS MICHEL: It hit the right edge. It was like -- it was nerve-wracking obviously. But, I holed it. Q. You were 3-down several times, morning and in the afternoon. Just talk about on the front nine in the afternoon when you got back into it. You were 3-down after 5, but then you holed like a 16-footer for par on the par 3, 6th. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, out of bunker. Yeah. Q. Uh-huh. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there was countless other putts as well that I holed. That would've been one of the more crucial ones I would say just to keep the match sort of not going his way too much. But, yeah, I mean, the putting was awesome. Q. And then you came back on 7 to get it to 1-down. You were just off the green. What did you hit to get there? LUKAS MICHEL: I hit like a -- I'm trying to think. Honestly it's all going into a blur. I was just short right of the green. Did I putt it up? I can't remember. Q. I think so. LUKAS MICHEL: I think I putted it up. Yeah, that's right. I putted it up to like just past the hole, I think. I don't know. It's all melting into one in my brain. Yeah, I think I went just past the hole and had a good comeback for birdie. That's right, yeah. So obviously that was a good moment in the match for me as well, just to keep things going my way, I guess. Yeah. Q. Yeah, seemed like you always found a way to at least get back into it. LUKAS MICHEL: I think, yeah. I mean, putting is the last thing you do on a hole, so when you're having a good putting day it's obviously going to look like you're doing everything you can to get back in the hole, which is I guess what I did. It wasn't my best ball striking day. It was mediocre. Joe hit the ball way better than me. When you're putting good it always looks like you're sort of coming from behind and making it happen. Q. I only remember one maybe five-footer that you didn't make today. LUKAS MICHEL: I mean, yeah, the birdie putt on 2 two. Q. Did it seem like the hole was bigger for you today? LUKAS MICHEL: No. Q. Because you looked pretty confident over the six, seven footers. LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, I just had a really good process. You probably watched it. Looked exactly the same time every I stepped up to a putt. So I just had a really good process. The putts had been going in earlier in the week, and just kind of a positive feedback loop when something is going your way. If you keep confident, keeps going your way. Q. And the last one from me. Can you just explain briefly about that process? It's probably strange for some people to see. It looks like you're standing on your line and... LUKAS MICHEL: So it's called the AimPoint. Basically I found it really useful around here because I struggled with my eyes to read the greens. There is a lot of obviously elevation change in the course. It's quite hilly. Then a lot of greens are sort of built into slopes. Figuring out which way the putts go can be really difficult with your eyes, so AimPoint you basically read it all with your feet. I don't think I looked at a single putt with my eyes today to try and read it. If I did, I probably misread it. It takes a while to train yourself to really discern the percentage of slope there is in your feet. And depending on the speed of the greens, the amount of break will change. But when I -- because I'd played the course so much leading into the final, I had a really good grasp of -- so basically 1% break equates to the projection of one finger at the hole. So a 10-footer with 1% projects to probably about five inches outside left edge or something like that. That changes based on the length of the putt. And so basically I just used that all week. Been doing it for four or five years, but, yeah, just worked really well this week for me. Q. Talk about the importance of having Will on your bag? LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, Will is great. We are very similar sort of guys. We think about the game similarly, quite rational, logical. We work through the numbers really well. In a way when you're so focused on numbers, any other distraction, whether it's what's going on in the background, whether he just hit it to ten feet or whatever, when you've just got one single mind on the yardage and all that, he was really good, good for that for my. I was able to hit some really good shots. I felt like my ball striking almost got better under pressure versus earlier in the round it kind of struggled. When he could kind of center me and get me focused, yeah, with just good numbers, that really worked. Q. How long have you known him? LUKAS MICHEL: We met down in Australia. He was working down there on like a year sort of transfer with his company. We played a tournament together and we got along really, really well. We had some mutual friends. I studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland for a time and he had a friend that was there and we just sort of hit it off. Then I came over last year to play some tournaments and we caught up. He had moved to Philly to do grad school and we played some golf in Philly. Then I came back this year and we played some golf up a Yale because he went to Yale. We played the course there. Great course. Yeah, we're just really, really good mates now. Q. And last one. With your master's degree in engineering do you have future plans you would liked to use this degree? LUKAS MICHEL: Yeah, I mean... Q. What are your future plans for golf, too? LUKAS MICHEL: So I basically finished school -- I was a good junior player. I wasn't a great junior player. I focused on my studies. I was strong academically. I finished school. I went straight into university. I played quite a bit of competitive golf on the side. Never really traveled internationally through my degree. It was a five-year masters program, so I did a Bachelor of Science, Master of Engineering and Mechanical at University of Melbourne. So finished that end of 2017, and then my golf was at a good level. Actually won a fairly big tournament end of 2017. That kind of spurred me on to maybe put a hold on career sort of plans. So I was like 23, turning 24 at the time because it took so long to get through the academics of the universities and all that. So I put my plans for work on hold a little bit and my parents were luckily supportive of that. I still work. Like I self-fund all my stuff. My parents aren't helping me come to all these events. I work at a little golf driving range. I caddie occasionally at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club and I work on my golf. I'm loving it at the moment. I guess this week sort of paid off. In terms of future plans, I guess I'm taking a slower sort of approach. I actually entered the Australian Tour School last year; got to the final stage; didn't get a tour card. I knew I was turning 25 at the beginning of the year. Sort of thought about turning pro without any status. Then kind of knew about this event, to be honest. Figured I would give it a run. And then, yeah, I do have professional aspirations, but I'm sort of taking a slow approach about it. I'm not in a massive rush. I'm just enjoy being myself while I go about it. Q. We thank you for your time. Congratulations on being the U.S. Mid Amateur champion. LUKAS MICHEL: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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