AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM

February 3, 2023

Harry Higgs

Pebble Beach Golf Links

Quick Quotes

Q. In the fall you discussed kind of the battle you've been having with your confidence and how it kind of became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy of getting down on yourself and how it translated to your game. You've been playing well though as of late. What kind of work have you done to build up that conviction in yourself?

HARRY HIGGS: God, you guys are good at asking questions. I shouldn't be shocked. Just kind of -- I spent some time with Doctor Bob Rotella just after Christmas. Didn't, no offense to him, didn't learn anything new. But that wasn't the goal.

There's no secret to kind of belief and giving yourself -- the key word that I brought out is giving yourself the gift of a great mindset and then nothing result-based. And painting a picture, seeing the shot before you hit it, walking in there and hitting it. Then just you got to live with it if it doesn't go as you plan.

I am, yes, playing better golf. I think I'm like three out of 10 that are like, Oh, yeah, that's what I thought was going to happen in my head. And I still need to be better at my reaction and kind of -- I guess I react to it still a little bit too, errr, you know, gosh. And it's frustrating because, man, I'm painting some awesome pictures. I'm seeing shots -- which is really good.

Once my skills continue to get better then it's just like it's the most fun you could ever have. You're playing golf again like a 12 year old.

But I need to be careful that it's not, I don't get all riled up and angry at the world because my golf ball didn't do what I wanted it to do. So I don't know, there wasn't really anything work-wise that I did. This is all stuff that I know. That every one of us know. Just I'm trying to make the choice every day to give myself the gift of a great mindset.

And it's hard. Like, I mean, none of us, no one in this world is perfect. I certainly am not. I've done a poor job. Other days I've done a great job. A couple weeks ago in Palm Springs I felt like I was about to lose it and I turned to my brother and said, Say something stupid. Tell me a stupid joke just so I don't freak out. And then went on and shot 4-, 5-, 6-under on the back nine, whatever it was.

I wouldn't have allowed myself to go to him in previous years and be like, Yo, help me out, man. Like I internalized it way too much and got all riled up.

Then it wastes my energy. Then at times it just, it wastes your energy so much that you're just not, you're not all the way ready to hit your next shot.

So it's, I guess, nothing new, I'm not really working on it, I'm just trying to do my best at giving myself the gift of a great mindset every day.

Maybe I was like a six, seven out of ten the last couple days. I don't know that I'm ever going to be a ten out of ten. I would love it. But it is, sadly, it is a results-based business. It's not a sad thing. We love competing and I love beating people. But, boy, I'm trying my best to not focus on any of that. Just painting pictures, seeing golf shots and walking in there and believing that that's what's going to happen.

Q. Obviously trying to disconnect the enjoyment from the results is hard enough as is. But is it even harder when, during this week when you're in contention, are you looking up at the leaderboard and seeing that or are you just trying to totally put that out?

HARRY HIGGS: Nope. Not pulling out the PGA TOUR app, nothing. Well, trying to. I didn't do a good enough job. I didn't play the back nine at Pebble this week. We've been here three, four times, so it hadn't changed. But part of my practice rounds now are locating score boards to do one of these (blocks eyes with hand.) So a couple of them caught my eye on the back nine. But you're able to just -- I did a pretty good job of shaking it off.

Then we also had the situation, the two groups in front of us and we, on 11, we get up there and the guys that were in the group were standing over there. Like no one knew what to do. I didn't want to be rude and keep playing. And so, I mean, that in a way, I wouldn't say it was necessarily a positive thing, but who really -- I mean, I missed a 6-footer for birdie on 11 and didn't really care. It was like, I just hope the gentleman is okay. Like that could have been any one of us.

So today was a weird day. And then, I mean, I could still be down on the beach there on 18. I don't know if you guys saw how I played that hole, but I hit a lot of shots up the coastline not on grass. So very thankful to be finished. I made an awesome 6. Which kind of pisses me off. But it was an awesome 6 regardless.

I'm going to go put my feet up and get ready for tomorrow. Spyglass has been my nemesis, so like I was saying, I'm going to have to do a really good job of -- especially, I'm sure, it's going to rain and be cold and probably a little windy -- I'm going to have to do a really good job of being patient, being, trying my best to be Happy Harry all day tomorrow no matter what happens. So, decent day tomorrow and we may have a chance to win this thing.

Q. Did you see the Bills-Bengals game?

HARRY HIGGS: No. We were, that was the one that we missed. I think I was maybe it was Saturday while I was playing.

Q. I wondered if you could relate to Bills players and what happened with them.

HARRY HIGGS: Oh, the first one. The Monday night one. Yeah. I mean, it had some shades of that. I was standing on the tee. They looked like they were 250 yards away, maybe even less, 200 yards away, and they were hammering away CPR on the gentleman. So, yeah, in a way.

It was weird. We teed off on 11 and once I got up there and saw the group that the caddie was in, they were off to the side and they were obviously very emotional. Hugging each other. I called a rules official over and just wanted to like, Is this okay? I don't want to be rude and keep going. It's like golf doesn't matter at all now, right?

And I guess, fortunately, it didn't happen in our group that we didn't really -- and then at the time that I had asked that it was also voiced to us that things have improved. The gentleman is most likely going to recover. So that obviously takes a weight off your shoulders.

But yeah, I mean, it's -- I mean, we've, none of us have ever had to deal with that. No one in the NFL had ever had to deal with what happened, what, six, seven weeks ago. So there is no playbook. There is nothing to do.

In a way I was worried that we were still going, but then at the same time it's like, all right, well, soldier on, keep going. I hope he's okay. Fortunately, we did get some good news while we were on 11, which helped. I mean it was --

Q. Did the rules officials tell you?

HARRY HIGGS: Yeah, I had seen one. I saw the group off to the left and I saw tees in the fairway. So clearly they had marked their balls and they were waiting. I had seen a rules official on the rope line and I wanted to call him over and be like, Hey, man, I'm fine stopping if this is -- like this is a very delicate, weird situation.

The group in front of us had played the hole and gotten back to 12 tee. So it seemed like they were okay to continue on. It was just -- I don't want to say weird to, like, take any gravity away from the situation, but it was just a weird situation. Everybody, I think everybody on property knew what had happened and everybody was flat. There was no energy, no juice on any of the holes coming in.

And again, fortunately -- it was just awkward too. Walking right through that group and continuing to play and, fortunately, I mean, me personally, selfishly, it kept my mind at ease that we had gotten some good news as I played through that group basically.

I don't know. Maybe if it was not so good news -- it was uncomfortable enough in a way that I could have seen myself being, like I'm not going to do this. Like it didn't happen in my group, I didn't get a firsthand account of anything, but this doesn't feel right. I'm not going to keep going.

Fortunately, we got some good news and kept going. I hope there's more good news in the coming hours and days. Just a very difficult and kind of a first. Hopefully a last.

Q. When you were talking about Happy Harry, not looking at boards and all this other stuff. If you take the emotion part away or to the head part that you can take away, do you think your game is good enough to beat anybody out here?

HARRY HIGGS: Yeah. I don't think anybody would ever answer that any different. It's certainly -- when I am in a good frame of mind and more accepting, it's even easier. But, yeah. Maybe I don't know if I would have answered that same question about a year ago -- well, no, a little less than a year ago, in the same manner. But I don't even feel like I've gotten remarkably better at anything. I've just been a little nicer to myself. It's been a little easier. It is such a results-driven business that we're in. And we, everybody wants to beat everybody. I'm trying not to focus on that and trying to just do my own, you know what, and see how great I can be. And, yes, I believe that I can be one of if not the greatest. Who knows if I'll ever get there, but I sure feel that way. Especially if I give myself the gift of a good mindset.

Q. Do you feel like, as you're in that process, do you feel like you're starting to have more fun out there at least compared to this time last year?

HARRY HIGGS: It wasn't a ton of fun out there today, because it was crazy difficult. Yes, that's the goal. I mean, this is supposed to be fun. I get to play a game for a living. And I had no fun for about 10 months last year playing golf. I get to -- I mean, you can't see behind me right now, but we can see out the little corner, right, this is supposed to be fun. I'm playing -- Fred Perpall is one of my great friends back in Dallas. This should be a ton of fun. And it's not always. I am human. We are human. Sometimes it's no fun, leave me alone.

But, yeah, that's another big piece of this. If I allow myself to have more fun, I know I play better golf doing that anyway. So, again, I'm trying to make the choice and live it kind of day-in and day-out. But obviously there are things that come up in each and every day that sometimes make it difficult to have more fun.