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February 5, 2022

Ratchanon Chantananuwat

Royal Greens Golf and Country Club

Quick Quotes

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: It wasn't that bad. I started off really good. I was 2-under through eight. Then I went five bogeys, 5-over in five holes when the wind started picking up. It's just loose mistakes, like I pulled into the water on the last hole for my final bogey, finished 4-over.

I think they were all the same mistakes, probably my setup and long irons. Obviously long irons multiply your mistakes. So I probably just need to do a bit of work on the range with my dad. That's what he said on the porch anyways.

Q. Conditions weren't that easy, though? You shouldn't blame yourself.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: No, really windy. No, I'm not blaming myself.

Q. You've obviously played in these kind of environments a few times now. What kind of things are you picking up from watching the other players?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Last time I played in these conditions with this much wind was in Tanah Merah, and I used to hit a lot of low shots to just avoid the wind completely.

Q. There was much more wind than here.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I think it's the same. It depends op the peak times. Probably pretty similar. I think when I get to harder greens, like I saw in a tournament in Dubai, when I stayed there in between Singapore and here, the greens are much harder. You can't just go knock down. So I tried to get my ball flight up a bit, and I just need to pick the right shot when to hit a knockdown or when to work with the wind and play higher shots.

As for the players, this is definitely new for me. This is a much bigger field. They're so much better. So, yeah, I have a lot of work to do.

Q. What are you picking up? What are you seeing and think I need to get better with that?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Obviously, I played with Cameron Smith the first two days. He's in contention, he was in contention since the very first day. He's just damn good. There's nothing special about him. He out drives me by quite a lot. I think that's the first big difference I saw because I'm just pretty much catching up on it.

Q. You're going to get bigger.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I'm just beginning to catch up on the Asian Tour average with these guys, and I also play with another PGA TOUR player. He out drives me a lot. So that's the first thing.

And Cameron Smith's putting is really good as well. His short game is amazing. I think I need to get better at birdie putts from mid-range. For me, I see it with Cameron Smith, 12 feet to 35 feet, no difference. He's just aiming and it falls in.

Q. How important is it for you to play tournaments like this and the fact that you're just 14, amateur, but you're playing with the professionals. How important is it or how significant is it that you get to play these kind of tournaments? What are you picking up?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I think for me obviously I'm very fortunate. I'm probably one of the few people, if not the only kid to get to play these tournaments often. Yeah, I'm picking up quite a lot of things. I guess to the other 14-year-olds or kids younger than me, I think just come watch. You won't get the experience, you won't get to play yourself, but you'll definitely get to see different things.

Q. So you're appreciative of that?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Yeah, yesterday I finished early, and I went to watch D.J. I had spoke to Paul Casey in Singapore, and he said D.J. is probably one of the most planned and smart person golfer right now.

Q. What's your plan moving forward? I know you're still very young, have school to take care of, but long term, how far into the future have you looked?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Obviously, my plan is I'm going to stay in school and then go to college, do a couple years of college. So these four weeks that I've spent outside of Thailand were really costly academic-wise. So I'm going to take it a bit slower from now on when I go back to Thailand.

The next tournament I have would be Sage Valley. It's at Sage Valley, the Junior Invitational.

Q. It's a great tournament.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: It's a great tournament. Everyone's telling me go play the course alone. It's heaven for golfers. I'm going to be off a week from school, 12 hours difference from Thailand. So that's big. I'm going to enjoy that as much as possible and then catch up again.

I'm supposed to take my tests in 2023. That's my first IGSE test, but I'm going to take my physics and biology tests, potentially economics tests a bit early. I'm going to do it by June this year. So that's this summer, that's the end of your tenth. So after Sage Valley, I really need to catch up in school.

Q. Are you a good student?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I try to be. I definitely need to be really efficient.

Q. How do you know how to give so much time to your studies given the fact that it's quite obvious you spend a lot of time with your golf?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Honestly, like I said, I need to be efficient, but I just try to find loopholes. Like for example, let's say in a biology lesson, if I missed three lessons, I come back to the third lesson, and I still have a general idea and I only need to do a bit of the key details. Like the answers you would have to do on the test.

Q. You figured that out?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Yeah, for example, where most of it is on the esophagus or something, I need to work on that. But if I missed six lessons and I have no idea, I need to probably go through all six. Some lessons, for example, math, if it builds on each other or English, I need to go back to the start. But if it's lessons where they all tie in together and I get the big idea at the end.

Q. Just wait till you get to calculus.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Math used to be my favorite subject, but now I hate it the most. I like every subject except math.

Q. Do you think any of your subjects help you on the golf course?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Yeah, I think physics would be one of them.

Q. But not like Bryson and doing all those kinds of things?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: No. I'm a big fan of science, and science would be one of my favorite subjects. But, no, I'm not Bryson DeChambeau, but I will have to start doing something that would be golf specific.

The other subject that I thought would help would be psychology. I chose it because, okay, it's my fifth choice. Might as well. But now we're learning why people go to prisons, why people do these things. It doesn't help me with my emotions when I've got water on the left and bunker on the right and a hundred people watching.

Q. When you say college, do you mean in the states?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Yeah, I'm planning to go to the states.

Q. Any college in particular that you have in your --

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I'm not 100 percent sure yet because I'm not even sure what subject I'm going to choose. I'm literally still too young. They can't even contact me.

Q. I'm sure for golf reasons will you pick something like Texas or Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State University, something like that? Or will you go for Ivy Leagues?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I'm not going to -- Ivy League, like Stanford would be one of them. I would love to go to Stanford or maybe something like you said Oklahoma has proven to be a decent school academic and really good for golfers or athletes in general. So I'm going to try to go for top schools that will help me in my golf as well.

Q. How is it playing with Lee today?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: He was really nice.

Q. A legend of the game. Think of the experience he has. It must be amazing.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: He's really nice. I was just having dinner last night, and I got a notification that he just followed my account, so that's really cool. He mentioned me in his story as well. I got almost 300 followers overnight just because of his story mention.

In golf he's really nice. I learned quite a lot from him. I think his short game is pretty good, but I think he got in a lot of tough spots today. He was just unlucky. Like he had this pluck bunker shot or he'd be plugged in the rough. But he was really patient and really nice.

Q. Once he's got you on a different level, he'll be making fun of you. That's what he does to me.

Q. Golfers you admire in the game, a couple that you see I'd like to do that or elements of his game?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I don't have one single idol I've got to copy everything. I just go with what works best for me. If I see something in D.J.'s swing, I try to implement that into my own if that's going to work. If I see something from Xander, I'll do the same. Like Cameron Smith, I saw his short game. I'll try to go up to his level.

Q. How did you start? What was the starting point of your love of golf?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I followed my dad to the range when I was 3 1/2 years old.

Q. What's your dad's full name?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Tara. I went to the range with him. I was just hitting plastic stuff, stuff like that.

Q. Which golf course was this?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: It's in Thailand. I can't remember. He used to play a lot. He used to play Panya. It's a very, very good course. It's really slopey. He would bring me there quite often.

He used to tell me -- he would put me on this hole, D-4 or D-6, it was a par-3. I started flying the ball when I was around 4. There would be water on this hole, and he just bought me balls. He had me hit over the water, and I would continually hit into the water because I couldn't carry it past even from the drop zone. Eventually, I started carrying it over the green.

And he brought me to my first tournament when I was 4, 4-something. Then there were three people, including me. I finished last.

Q. Still third.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Yeah, still third. Third out of three people.

Q. Bronze medalist.

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: But they only give out a trophy to the winner. Obviously, I saw that, and I got really jealous. I cried. So we started working on golf for the next month, and I came back to the same tournament, and I won. Then I started playing after that.

Q. And he has been your coach throughout?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: Yeah, he --

Q. Or you go to somebody else?

RATCHANON CHANTANANUWAT: I have quite a couple coaches, like three in Thailand, and then some people I do online work with, but they're all slightly different from each other. And my dad just filters all of it. Like I said earlier about the other players, see what works best for me and like implement it into my swing.

Yeah, how he describes it, the coaches I have, like one would be, for example, an eye doctor, another one would be for your stomach or another one would be for your back. They're slightly different, and you just put them all together.