LIV GOLF ADELAIDE

February 14, 2025

Sam Horsfield

The Grange

Majesticks GC

Postgame Show Quick Quotes

Q. How are you feeling?

SAM HORSFIELD: Feeling good. Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here. Obviously I played really nice all day, holed some nice putts. It was pretty tricky in the wind. Obviously the greens are running probably 12, 13 on the stimpmeter so you've got to factor in the wind on the putts, and yeah, it was nice to see a few go in.

Q. How difficult is it? Obviously you've been through a pretty severe injury and the road to recovery and then coming back to playing so well. How are you managing your confidence and your expectations coming out here?

SAM HORSFIELD: Yeah, it's been a long -- that actually was two years ago here at this event. I already had a slight tear but then I slipped and tore it again so ended up missing six months of the year in '23 there. But a lot of hard work, a lot of time in the gym maybe that I wouldn't have done.

For my game, I feel like my game has been trending a lot recently. I played solid last week, finished in 12th last week.

Yeah, obviously just try to do the same things over the weekend and see where that puts me.

Q. Talk about paying the price it takes to compete at this level. I talked to one of your old instructors Sean Foley, and he knows talent and he's seen talent. He told me at Isleworth one day that you were as physically talented as anybody he ever worked with; it was just a matter of you building that confidence through paying the price, putting in the gym work and the range work and everything else and the mental work to get to this level. Talk about paying that price and when you start to see the results how much it just makes it all worthwhile.

SAM HORSFIELD: Yeah, for sure. Obviously I'm not working with Foles anymore, but it's been six, eight months we've gone our separate ways, but I have all the time in the world for Foles. He was texting me the other day and we're still great friends.

But yeah, where I play in Orlando, Isleworth, the course has been closed. They did a massive renovation on the course. It's been really good for me to practice and do efficient practice instead of playing every single day. I'm a big player. I like to go out and play money games with the guys and do all that stuff. But obviously with the course being closed over our off-season, I've been able to hone in on the areas that I was weaker in last year, and yeah, I think I'm seeing the rewards for it.

It's an amazing game. Two years ago here I was probably the most upset and pissed off I'd been for a long time on a golf course, and now I'm here leading after the first round. It's an amazing game, and hard work and perseverance can bring you a long way.

Q. I have to ask you about the fans in Australia; are you the type of player that feeds off the fans, or does it distract you or do you love it?

SAM HORSFIELD: You've got to embrace it. You have to embrace it. I heard I think it was 35,000 here today. Seemed like there was 33,500 on the Watering Hole when we got there. It was absolute carnage.

But no, you've got to embrace it, otherwise you're going to get left out high and dry sort of. Yeah, it's my favorite tournament of the year. I love coming back here. They have a lot of class and respect for the game of golf. They understand the game. It's always a treat to come and play in front of them.

Q. You're also part of the fabric of probably the most replayed highlight from the short history of LIV Golf and that was of course Chase Koepka's hole-in-one two years ago. It got replicated today by Patrick Reed, but two years ago we didn't know what to expect if something like that happened there, and it did. It was absolute mayhem and chaos. After all that mayhem on the tee, we see somebody come out from the left, hobbling on one leg, trying to get back there and give him a high five and congratulate him, and somebody said, we think that's Horsfield. That was after you hurt yourself and you were dancing back there on one leg.

SAM HORSFIELD: Yeah, very interesting story. So I was up here at the course getting treatment all day on my hip, and he was playing with Ian Poulter, so I was like, you know what, I'm going to go check out the Watering Hole from a fan's perspective. I got the opportunity to do it; why not.

I've known Chase for a long time, and obviously when I saw it go in, I was like, oh, my goodness, that's absolutely ridiculous, and I didn't know what to do. Then I got halfway there, and I was like, my hip is absolutely killing me and I can't move properly. It's a great memory and a terrible memory at the same time.