LIV GOLF UNITED KINGDOM

July 26, 2024

Sam Horsfield

JCB Golf and Country Club

Majesticks GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome Sam Horsfield from Majesticks GC. This is a home game for you. You're at your home course. You're currently sitting at T-6. You fired off a 4-under today. Tell us about your day.

SAM HORSFIELD: It was nice. Playing with Ian and Westy was a lot of fun, and the English crowds really brought the energy today. There was so many people watching us all day. Even when we were up there on 6 and 7, sort of the back end of the course there, there was a bunch of people out there supporting us.

Obviously it was really nice to shoot a low one and play pretty nicely.

Q. Tell us about the party hole. How was that experience today?

SAM HORSFIELD: It was good. They were pretty nice and sauced up by the time we got there. It was our second to last hole. They were yelling and doing all that good stuff.

Yeah, it was -- did anyone get close to a hole-in-one today?

Q. I'm actually not sure.

SAM HORSFIELD: Yeah, it was a pretty accessible pin. I didn't hit a very good shot in there, unfortunately. I didn't give them much to hoot and holler about, but I made par and moved to the next.

Q. Obviously we talked about you've been in great form lately. You've been playing really well. How much of playing well today has contributed to that, and how much can you attribute to this is your home course and you play it all the time?

SAM HORSFIELD: I think a bit of both. It's obviously really nice to be playing at my home course, but with tee boxes obviously moved around a little bit, there's a few tee shots where I have to be really focused on because I'm just so used to stepping up and hitting it on a line, and that's just not the line from the tee box we're playing on.

Yeah, it's really, really cool to be able to sleep in my own bed. That's probably the best perk about it, to be honest with you, with all the traveling and hotel rooms we do and stuff like that. It's nice to make my own coffee in the morning and sleep in my own bed. It's been a good week so far.

Q. And are you surprised at the leaderboard? I don't know if you've had a chance to look, but we have Jon Rahm sitting at 8-under and then a whole pack of guys kind of 6-under, 5-under, 4-under, a lot of low scores today. Does that surprise you?

SAM HORSFIELD: No. It's sort of one of those golf courses that, when you get it in play, the greens are quite sectioned so you have a lot of good iron shots if you have good numbers and stuff. They sort of funnel towards the hole.

Like there was a pin on 9 today back right, and you can hit it 20 feet left of it, and it will all just funnel down there. It's just little things like that and certain lines off certain tees where I know I can miss it, more importantly can't miss it.

Q. And how meaningful would your first LIV Golf win be to have here at your home course in your home country?

SAM HORSFIELD: It would be amazing, special. Yeah, I feel like I'm playing good golf at the moment. I've been playing good for the last couple months or so. Sort of fed off of that today a little bit. It would be obviously really, really cool. I'll take an LIV win anywhere in the world.

Q. Does it add any extra pressure going into the weekend?

SAM HORSFIELD: I definitely felt it a little bit today to start out. I wasn't nervous, but obviously you're more just aware of the situation. Obviously there's a lot more people yelling and hollering at you.

So, yeah, it would be really cool. The pressure with it would -- yeah, it would be pretty nerve-racking, but honestly it's golf at the end of the day, right? We know what to do. We know how to hit it. We know how to get the ball in the hole. Yeah, just focus on trying to do that.

Q. A couple of days ago you said that you thought 15 was kind of a target number. Are you sticking to that now after seeing the scores on the first day?

SAM HORSFIELD: I'd take 15 right now. Rahm shot 8, did he shoot? Obviously he's playing to get in -- if he keeps up this play, he'll be getting into the 20s. Obviously my 15 prediction was a little bit off, but two more days of golf, we've got some weather coming in, I think a little bit tomorrow. We'll see on Sunday night.

Q. What would you consider the most interesting shot out here?

SAM HORSFIELD: There's a couple. Number 3 is just an interesting hole. You can hit a good golf shot there and it go in the water. So that hole is really tricky. Yesterday in the Pro-Am, I hit it just in the left rough. I could easily get there, hit lob wedge, lob wedge, just laid up and had 90 yards to the green. Number 3 is a really, really interesting hole.

Getting onto the back nine, and you've got 12, drivable par-4 with quite a lot of slope up the left side that you can use and sort of ricochet the ball into the green with a hazard on the right.

Yeah, there's a few really interesting ones. I think it will be a good show for the weekend.

Q. And what was the most inventive thing you heard from the English fans today?

SAM HORSFIELD: I can't say it (laughter). I heard some stuff on the golf course today.

No, but they were great. They were awesome. I always say the English fans to me are the best fans to play in front of because they really understand the game. You can be in a horrendous lie in the rough and you hit it to 20, 30 feet, and they understand and appreciate the level of shot you just hit, whereas in some other countries they just think you've hit a wedge to 30 feet. They know it's not good, whereas in a situation like that, they really understand the golf.

They were cheering for us all day. Poults and Westy were getting a lot of love out there. Obviously I was too. Everyone was yelling at them, and it was such a cool atmosphere.

Q. Sam, your game's clicked over the last few weeks. Is there something that you can put that down to specifically at all?

SAM HORSFIELD: Yes. I had a bit of a swing coach change. I just felt like I was not playing bad. I just wasn't getting anything out of my game and just was hitting a couple of poor shots around that would cost me.

So I started hitting a fade off the tee and hitting more fades, and I think since I've done that, I don't think I've hit a provisional or anything along those lines, sort of the things that kill your round.

Yeah, I just feel like I've had a lot of opportunities, kept it in play, and yeah, playing nice.

Q. Obviously the top 24 get a guaranteed contract for next year in the LIV Golf league. Is that something that ever crosses your mind when you look at the standings over the course of the year?

SAM HORSFIELD: No, you just go week to week. You just play golf and see where it ends up at the end of the year. I think I looked before around Houston time or something like that, but I don't really look at it to be honest with you.

For myself, I like to set little goals and things that I want to improve on throughout the year and stuff like that. So that's more sort of what I focus on, to try to improve myself and my own game throughout the year, and hopefully that leads to good results.

Q. Everyone thought that this golf course was going to be extremely hard before today. Obviously the scores didn't show that. What has to happen for this golf course to get hard?

SAM HORSFIELD: They can put some pins in some ridiculous spots, first of all. We're playing a couple of tee boxes on -- I think 15 we played 40 up today, and I still had 180 in there. Yeah, they can stretch it out. They can put pins in spots where, if you hit it 20 feet away, you're lagging it up there to 5, 6 feet.

Weather dependent on the weekend, I think we're supposed to get some rain tomorrow is what I've heard, so obviously that will soften it up and be helpful for the scores.

But Terry, my caddie, he walked it on Monday, it was, and he came back to my house and he said, if I wanted to, I could make 10-over around here. It's that sort of golf course. It can be tricked up. They can put pins in spots that you can't get close to and you're playing to 30 feet all day.

Q. The other thing is did you change swing coaches, or did you just make the decision to start hitting a fade?

SAM HORSFIELD: I changed swing coaches.

Q. And who's the new swing coach?

SAM HORSFIELD: His name is Steve Vinnicombe. I worked with him a little bit before I started working with Foles. Yeah, I went back to some old feels when I just started hitting shots like how I was as a kid, and I always hit it left to right when I was a kid. I felt like I got too draw biasy with my golf swing and the way that the ball was going.

So, yeah, I wanted to start seeing it go the other way with a bit more spin and control, and yeah, I did that.

Q. Talking to all the players when they make changes and they come back, they go, I just wonder why I went to the other thing to begin with. Why didn't I just stay with what I had? What about you? Why didn't you just stay with what you had?

SAM HORSFIELD: Well, I don't think I'd be the golfer I am today, and I don't think I'd understand the things about the golf swing that I do now without the couple years I was working with Foles. So I'm obviously really appreciative of everything he's taught me. We still have a fantastic relationship.

When I finished second in Nashville a couple weeks ago, he was one of the first people to text me. We still have a fantastic relationship, no hard feelings. At the end of the day, it's business, and I felt like making a bit of a change would help my golf game, mentally give me a little bit of a kick, and I feel like it has.