LIV GOLF ANDALUCIA

July 2, 2023

Talor Gooch

Real Club Valderrama

RangeGoats GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome our individual champion of LIV Golf Andalucía, Talor Gooch. Welcome, Talor. You have now broken two LIV records. The first was you're the very first back-to-back winner which happened this season, and now you are the very first LIV Golf three-time individual winner. How does that feel?

TALOR GOOCH: It's super special. I was just saying earlier, last year I didn't get a win, so this year I was just so focused on getting an individual win. You don't think much past the first one until you get the first one.

I definitely didn't have three in mind for the season, but it's cool that we're here, and it's especially cool to have the third one here at Valderrama.

THE MODERATOR: Tell us a little bit about the fans this week and your experience out here and what it felt like being around the Spanish fans.

TALOR GOOCH: It was just fantastic. Like I've said probably a dozen times now, my wife and I kind of halfway joked here on the second night, we love this place, we love the people, we might need to get a place here and spend off-seasons here.

Everything is just absolutely first class, and I'm already excited to be back here next year.

Q. Your wife and your baby are here with you this week. Was it really special having an opportunity to get those pictures and having them watch you win?

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah, absolutely. With them not being at the other two, to have that opportunity to kiss them after the win and hug them, that's what it's all about.

Q. Can you just kind of walk us through the winning putt there?

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah, first off, I hit a really good second shot and put us really in a perfect position to be aggressive with a putt. The first day we didn't make a bunch of putts, and yesterday we made a few more putts, and then my caddie and I, we got a really good read on that last putt.

I knew the way that Bryson had been battling all throughout the day, I knew he wasn't going to make a bogey. So I knew it was going to take a birdie to win.

I had a really good read on it and made a positive, confident stroke, and as I was telling Jane earlier, I just felt like I was going to make it, and before I even hit the putt, I was already visualizing the fist pump that was coming with it. I'm glad it went in.

Q. Take us through the day, as you mentioned, Bryson was battling, he got out of jail a couple times at 11 and 17. Did you feel like at any time, is this really going to be my day?

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah, you know, in those types of moments, you know that the golf gods have their hand at play. You don't know what the result is going to be, but that's where you just focus on yourself, and you just try to hit, as I keep saying out here, as many fairways as possible.

My game is obviously in a good state, and I knew if I could get myself in the fairway a bunch, we were going to have a chance to win down the stretch.

We just kept plodding along, plodding along, and didn't really make a bunch of putts. That was the longest putt of the day, obviously, so it was nice to save the best one for last.

Q. Being in the final group with a guy that's won five majors and obviously Bryson has won the U.S. Open, can you imagine what it was like maybe four or five years ago with you at that point of your career versus what it's like now and staring them down basically?

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah, you know, yes and no. Five years ago, my game wasn't what it is now. I always had the belief that down the road if I, week in and week out, month in and month out, put the work in, I knew good things were going to happen.

We just kept building stones on this house and building belief in this journey, and knowing that those are the things that are going to eventually get you to these positions to do what we did today.

It's been a journey. It's been years and years of hard work and sacrifice by both myself and my family and my wife and my coach and my trainer and everyone involved. It's not by chance that this is happening, but I'm forever grateful that it is happening.

Q. You mentioned yesterday about Ryder Cup, that if you won three times...

You seem to be throwing out a lot of these statement victories.

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah. Hey, at the end of the day, the professional golf world has been in a crazy place over the last 365 days. I've always dreamed of being on a Ryder Cup. Before making the decision to come to LIV, Max Homa was one of my good buddies on PGA TOUR, and we talked about -- my wife and I did our honeymoon in Italy, and we did Rome, and he and his wife couldn't do their honeymoon in Italy, so we had always had the talk the last couple years of, well, we're just going to have to go team up there and go do it.

Yeah, obviously it's out of my hands. It's out of my control. But the one thing I can control is playing good golf. I'll continue to do that to the best of my abilities, and hopefully things work out.

Q. For those that criticized you after you changed to the LIV Golf Tour, is this victory is the way that you answer these guys?

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah. I mean, hey, at the end of the day, my job is to play golf. My job is to go and play great golf. My job is to go and help the RangeGoats play great golf.

At the end of the day, each week, each day, that's my focus. Everything that has been going on outside of the golf course is out of our control.

For me, I have three good teammates. I have a good coach, good trainer, fantastic caddie and everything in between. So for us, we're just going to continue to focus on playing great golf.

I coined the term a while back, it's called the rule of 67. Just go shoot 67 and everything will take care of itself.

Q. After winning LIV Golf and seeing this lovely course for the first time, Valderrama, what moment is in your memories forever?

TALOR GOOCH: The last putt for sure. Kind of coupled with the second shot. It was not an easy second shot. In true Valderrama fashion, I hit a perfect -- what I thought was a perfect tee ball, and it was maybe five yards too far, and I had to hit a cut 6-iron around the trees on the second shot.

A few people kind of tapped me on the side this week and they said, this course is built for you. It's my style of golf.

When I was standing up on that second shot knowing what I had to do, it just fit me. To come through and still execute, hit that great shot and then the putt, those two shots I'll never forget.

Q. They can't eat you, so my question is did you make that call this morning, and have you talked to your dad? I think it's like 11:30 in Tulsa.

TALOR GOOCH: Yeah, I made the call. I made the call right before I went and kissed my wife before going to the first tee. Again, it's pretty boring, but same ol' same ol'. Hey, go hit a bunch of fairways, have fun, they can't eat you. Call me after. I haven't called him yet, but I'll be calling him here shortly.

Q. We're heading to London next, and you were there in London. I just wanted to ask you, looking back on where we were a year ago and what it felt like heading into that tournament and where we are now as an organization and then also where you are and where your game is at right now. Can you just reflect on that a little bit for us?

TALOR GOOCH: So my wife and I talk about it quite frequently. It feels like this last 365 days we've lived about three different lifetimes. It's been a whirlwind. It's been the longest, the shortest, the most amazing, the most difficult and everything in between. It's been a journey that I will cherish and we will cherish forever. Not just me and my wife but everyone involved.

We set out to do something special, and it's going to be really, really, really cool to be there and to relive the last year since we were first there last summer.

It's special, and I'm already excited about all the books and the documentaries and everything that are going to come from it.