	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

MERCEDES-BENZ CHAMPIONSHIP

January 2, 2007

Stuart Appleby

KAPALUA, HAWAII

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thank you for joining us here in the media centre at the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Joining us this morning is three-time defending champion Stuart Appleby. Stuart, start with some opening comments about coming back to defend your title here and maybe some comments on the inaugural FedExCup that kicks off this week.
STUART APPLEBY: First of all coming here as defending champion, coming back here is a pleasure full-stop but coming back as defending champion in this event, now being my fourth attempt in a row is exciting. Brings back a lot of great memories, a lot of great golf. Each one is a little bit different because it's a different number.
So I don't know if this one is any different to the last one, I don't know anything, actually, I've never done this before. Maybe Tiger has more experience in knowing what it's like but it's exciting and looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to feeling like I have the previous years and certainly this being the first kickoff for the FedExCup, the inaugural event, and someone will be the first -- who is the first guy to tee it off?
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: K.J. Choi.
STUART APPLEBY: K.J. Choi will be the first to kick it off. We're all looking forward to the new changes and some excitement the last couple of months and year, but yeah, it's all going to be new and we're excited.

Q. Have you brought property up here?
STUART APPLEBY: I have.

Q. It's about time probably, right.
STUART APPLEBY: Actually it's funny you say that because I got a lot of questions asked about, oh, you should buy property here, you're the king of Kapalua and all that sort of stuff. I got that for a couple of years and that is about it, and I knew Jim Furyk has been here for quite a long time. It's an amazing piece of property. It's not my home, but it's become my golf home in a way. Half of my victories have come out of this section of the woods, so it was a no-brainer.

Q. What neck of the woods is it?
STUART APPLEBY: Honolua Ridge. It's probably about a half mile to mile up the hill if you come by the hill, straight up the top. New developments, it's beautiful.

Q. Is the house already built?
STUART APPLEBY: No, it's all just been cleared out. It's in it's infancy stages.

Q. How much time do you expect to stay here and how much pressure is there to win?
STUART APPLEBY: If I keep winning, I'll keep turning up. It's a unique part of the world full-stop. It is like another country Hawaii. I know it's the U.S., but it's like another country. There's very few places like it. It's not to come back to a place that you have so many fond memories. So many people were saying you should be buying property and I was happy to do it.

Q. Your fish thoughts on the FedExCup and as it starts this week?
STUART APPLEBY: Everything will be normal. I think everything will be pretty much normal through the year. There will be some discussion, but I think the real crux of where the Cup is going to come is the last five weeks of the year when people are trying to make a move and extra pressure will be on and that.
Otherwise, it's just a horse race, get out of the gates, get our position and get going. We're all going to be trying from every tournament. There's none of this I'll try at the end of the year and make my run. We'll be going as solid as we can. The schedule is more condensed. We don't know quite how, sort of how do we position, do I play that event now because I traditionally have or now that doesn't fit as good because I need to make a run through here. A lot of guys are certainly looking at the schedule more intently than previous years because of the condensed period of time. We have to play hard.

Q. How has your schedule changed this year as opposed to the last couple?
STUART APPLEBY: I'm still looking at it. I could typically tell you my schedule two months out, minimum. Now I'm not quite sure. I've got to -- I know I'm playing this week and next week, and then I have to really sort of see how I make a run through what's left of the West Coast Swing and then the Florida Swing. That's really changed up through there. The way I do it is sort of backwards. I look at my majors and see what's before that and come backwards and fill in the gaps and things like that.

Q. Do you take more satisfaction out of your win here or at Houston, given the fact that there may be more marquee players here but in Houston you had 140 guys that have a chance to win?
STUART APPLEBY: Well, they are different because --

Q. You have to pick one. (Laughter.)
STUART APPLEBY: This is more important because I had three in a row. Not many people have done that.
But Houston was special because it was my second win for the year, first time I had ever done that. Sort of, yes, this was an elite field of winners. Houston was my second win, and so it was a really interesting mix. If I was to win this week, you know, I think this would be the most important one because, I don't know, it would just be like rolling the dice. The numbers keep coming up. Vijay I know has played only 800-some odd shots and only three shots separate us through all those years, and fortunately for me it's been on the right side of victory.
I know you want me to pick. Houston more for my win but the hat trick here was pretty special.

Q. Why do you keep winning here?
STUART APPLEBY: To not talk about I'm comfortable or I do this or whatever, I look at myself and Vijay's not got much of an idea of how to take a long-time break, and the rest of the players do. Maybe they are a little bit rusty or cold or not quite sure what's going on. I've been playing, I say "I"; previously in all of the other years I've been playing up to early December, the 10th of December, so I'm not that out of form or out of the momentum of tournament play, and coming here I'm relatively fresh. I've still got a warm game. Certainly Vijay is always practicing.
So for us two there, we are warmer than the rest and that could be real -- that could be just a made-up thought of mine. But there's something real to that.

Q. There's got to be some truth, too, to the course. Tiger has talked about that at Firestone or Torrey Pines or Bay Hill and some courses just look good to you.
STUART APPLEBY: I don't drive the ball as good as I want to, so it is pretty generous. I like the wind. And the Australian Open, was a much tougher golf course and windy and flatter and not quite as scenic; (laughter) other than that, it's pretty similar.
I tend to remember picking a lot of good clubs here. I tend to manage to get the right club in my hand. And maybe not always whether I hit the right shot but I tend to get the distance control right, which is one of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing in the wind. It's really funny because there's nothing typical about this golf course that says I should do well. It's hilly; I didn't grow up on hilly golf courses. Windy; yes, I'm used to some wind. Bermuda, I never grew up on that.
So I just feel comfortable here. I just tend to feel comfortable and very relaxed, and I have almost -- it's like a conditioned response when I get on the first tee. I still feel nervous all the time like you do through any tournament, but just, you know, has that bit more of a relaxed feeling about knowing that I have played well here. I can play well here, and usually I'm playing well when I come here.

Q. Can I ask one more question? Do you love it here so much that you're starting to wear their shirts?
STUART APPLEBY: Sort of and not sort of. Actually my wardrobe has sort of gone a bit AWOL, so I had to get some new shirts.
I brought some stock over that wasn't fit to be worn properly, so I had to go to the pro shop last night and raid the pro shop for this week.

Q. Are you still with Ashworth?
STUART APPLEBY: (Shaking head no.) What's that, shaking head? (Laughing) I'm all set up through the first of February.

Q. Contract is not done or --
STUART APPLEBY: It's sort of there. Is that the right answer?

Q. I have no idea.
STUART APPLEBY: Don't worry, no one gives a hoot anyways right now.

Q. I'm done. It looks good.
STUART APPLEBY: Thank you.

Q. I just wanted to make sure you didn't take it from the media side.
STUART APPLEBY: It looks like you took all of my shirts.

Q. How has this bit of an off-season you might have had from December 10 to now -- did you do the same things? Do you go back to Ohio?
STUART APPLEBY: I was back in Australia where I spent the first two victories I spent practicing. It's funny, when I came, before I won last year, I was in Florida and I was like, oh, this has broken my routine. Florida is really not much like Hawaii in the sense of the weather at that time of year. In Australia it's very windy and it's good preparation. But I won so I broke that whole thing I could have had in my head.
But preparation has been pretty similar, yeah. Haven't hit a lot of balls coming into this event three, four days of balls. Flying here, hit some balls yesterday. It has not been intense practise but still feel pretty fresh.

Q. Have you played the course yet this year?
STUART APPLEBY: No. Today I will.

Q. That kills the other question I was going to ask which was if you noticed that the greens are softer, they talked about maybe a little softer?
STUART APPLEBY: Last year I remember the issues they were trying to resolve was trying to get the front of the greens, the shorts of the greens firmer because they were too soft. As they get older, they will be softer. They were fast last year, I remember certain times downhill or downhill a little bit they were as quick as any greens in the world, and into the grain they were a lot slower. But downgrain -- and that's another thing, the greens are different from how they used to be. They were pretty slick, and I don't know if that's going to be the case this year. I think tradewinds are our forecast all week, but I would hope they would get a little softer as time goes on.

Q. Talked about wardrobe briefly, cryptically. Is there anything else new as far as equipment?
STUART APPLEBY: My Bridgestone golf bag is a different colour.

Q. Wow. Well, what colour?
STUART APPLEBY: It's now a streak of yellow and black and a bit of a silvery colour in there. It's different piping on it. The driver is the same and the clubs are the same. Everything else is the same.

Q. We'll go check out the bag.
STUART APPLEBY: And the Velcro strap thing is a little bit different from last year.

Q. There's obviously a lot of unknowns this year in terms of how the reshaped schedule shakes out. What is your biggest unknown? What's the one thing you don't know, you're curious to see how or why something unfolds?
STUART APPLEBY: They have drawn up some plans on how previous years would have rolled out and where the winners come from and things like that.
But I think the really good thing, initiative that was made that was not of a concern to me but took my interest was how are we going to are have a playoff system that was not a playoff system. Now with the reduction of the fields that is a fantastic idea. It really intensifies it, improves the quality of the fields and puts all of the players moving in the right direction that they have to at the end of the year, moves them into the next round. I think that's better than playing normal fields than just coming for The TOUR Championship.

Q. How is winning the FedExCup more meaningful than winning the Money List since both are season-long efforts?
STUART APPLEBY: I would like to talk to you about that at the end of the year and I'll tell you what it feels like.
I think that it's just going to be -- it's just going to be a little bit -- it may not be any harder, but it may feel harder to do it because of the extra scheduling you might have to putt in or the extra intensity that it may be presenting.
I know Tiger would feel the same way, it doesn't make you play better. Hitting a bad shot or hitting a great shot makes you want to play better. I know you talk Caddieshack, you know, this is to win, this is to whatever, your dream as a kid. But the bottom line is you're trying to beat the guy next to you if it's a match-play format, or if it's down to you and him on the last in stroke play or you're just trying to be the best player in the world that you can be.
That's going to be a huge part of it, too, from a promotional aspect. I just think the intensity coming down, it's going to be higher than whatever it is rolling in. THE TOUR Championship was a spike in ratings, but everything had flattened off previously. I think you're going to see more of a ramping effect with our scheduling.
FedEx is going to be excited about it; the players are. We want to have people watching us, you know, pushing ourselves across the line versus golf being a little fall off really compared to other major sports at that time of year.

Q. Right now as you sit here in your Mercedes Kapalua shirt, are you thinking FedExCup is starting, how is this different than how you sat here last year?
STUART APPLEBY: Probably no different right now, because like I mentioned, it's like getting out of the gates. We are all just going to get our pace and it's going to get more intense as time goes on. Same as guys who are trying to keep their card. They are probably too worried on, and by the last six months of the year, starts to get a little bit, oh, I have to get going here, whether it's get going to get your card, whether it's going to stay in the Top-70, whether it's to get going to get in the Cup playoff, it's just going to be different levels of pushing now. You don't feel that early on. None of us really will.

Q. That's a good point.
STUART APPLEBY: It's just trying to appeal, push the guys higher up now, up the list than maybe they pushed before.

Q. One quick follow-up just on that. Do you think the goal of most players, maybe not the absolutely, is Top-70, given that's going to enhance your chance to at least stay through Chicago? Do you feel me?
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, I agree, there's going to be a line to get across, but as a player, that may be your goal to position yourself there. You may say, well, I don't want to be there. I want to be as high as I can because I want to be best player I can there, and look, my ranking is going to change a little bit but I would still rather be 10th than 30th, because the stats show it's going to be tough for somebody to come out of the Top 10 or Top 15 to win.
I like there's lines being drawn in the sand for achievement for players to get in there; whereas before, it was like, yeah, I'd like to get in a couple nice tournaments, I'm borderline or I'd like to be inside the 100 in October. Now there's a lot more lines and they are starting the lines up higher in the category of players to a cutoff. We now know as players if with want to win this, we have to be right up high in the ranking. We cannot come from 50th or 60th. That would be an unbelievable achievement if someone would do that.
There are going to be many goals set all the way through the last two months of the year, the last two months of the season up to The TOUR Championship.

Q. Your thoughts on Tiger and Phil skipping this week again this year; disappointed they are not in the field or are you excited, more money for you as Calc said?
STUART APPLEBY: Phil said he was not going to play, four months, five months, seems like an eternity off.
Tiger made his decision making later. Having won three times, I'd like to think I have some intimidation factor on him, and he's just not interested in coming over here. He was going for, what, his seventh official win, maybe he didn't want me to break his run. I don't know what I have on him. It must be some psychic power to keep him away.
No, I'm sure it's disappointing, we all want to play against Tiger because we know any given week he can just explode, and there's a lot of really top players here. I'm here. I don't want to be too selfish, but we are all players trying to do our thing and Tiger sure is enjoying his lifestyle back home.
Is he a father, or is he going to be a father or something?

Q. He's skiing.
STUART APPLEBY: I hear skiers can break their legs -- maybe we won't see much of him for a while, if he hits the wrong slope. (Laughter)
Q. He may not make the FedExCup this year.
STUART APPLEBY: He may not. I can see it now. (Laughter).

Q. Just to talk a little bit more about the FedExCup and the season starting and at the same point, Tiger decided not to come out for it, when a marquee guy like Tiger decides not to show up, from the PGA TOUR's point of view, is that a slapdown of the system at all?
STUART APPLEBY: Not really. He dominated last year. His World Ranking is so strong ahead of Jim who is second and he's a mile behind.
I think you could pretty much give him a fair long start and he would still run up behind us pretty quickly. We've all seen what Tiger can do when he doesn't play and he comes out of breaks amazingly well, he can win two out of three or three out of four weeks. He knows, and Phil is another player that knows, their focus is on the major and that's what they say and that's what they are preparing for.
I know what you are saying, but just look at how good Tiger has played. He cannot play until March and look -- he can still do amazing things and win six or eight times in a year.

Q. Moving towards next week, the Sony Open and the annual stories of Michelle Wie, should she or should she not continue playing, that odyssey, last year's results did not match her previous results she had playing in PGA TOUR events, what's your thoughts this point now on her playing in the Sony Open again?
STUART APPLEBY: I'm not sure. I don't know. I hope she plays better. You know, it's great exposure for the tournament. I'm not sure when it's going to finish, the saga, whether she has to make a cut or whether that makes her want to play more events, I don't really know.
You know, I just think that she's had a good opportunity. I think she came five years too early to try to play the men's TOUR. I think she should really just let it go for now, come back when she's accomplished at a game that's more comparable to someone like Annika. Annika did her thing. She's just not ready for it. She's certainly not proving anything except that she can't play with the men at her level right now. There's no doubt she's going to improve dramatically as a player and mature as a person, but right now, it's just the wrong time.
A couple of times it's nice, it's interesting but now it's getting to the stage where she'll get criticized too much and she needs to pull the plug and come back when she's 20, 25.

Q. You talked about Tiger being so dominant, is it good for the Tour to have one dominant player, whether it's Tiger or Phil or Stuart Appleby or is it better to have parity on the PGA TOUR?
STUART APPLEBY: That's a good question. Okay, if there was no Tiger, game would be a little bit different. Promotion would be different. The guys signing for contracts that are ten times the next player. It's bringing interest to the game and new markets is huge. You can't deny that.
If you take that away, you have a different animal. But at the same time, you have golf that potentially is more sharing, it's a bit greedy when it comes to tournament victories. He takes more than his share through the year.
Look, I would say we're better with a dominant player, because it has created so much interest in the game. And, you know, him being a potential -- taking the throne of the greatest golfer ever is there. You don't get many opportunity to have someone like that in the game. Without him, it's not the same. It would be better for us. We would all be finishing higher in the fields every week. I know what you're saying but I think having Tiger in the game is good because it's going to push us as players and it's an extremely interesting era of golf right now.

Q. And since he is getting ready to have his first child, I was going to ask you how fatherhood, you're a first-time father, not for very long, how did being a father change your approach and your time management and your desire to be out there?
STUART APPLEBY: For Tiger, I don't think it will make any difference to Tiger. I think Tiger has got his life in balance. He's not been a parent, but I think he'll understand, he certainly had a close connection with his parents. So I think he'll understand what is going to be ahead. He's balanced that way. He has a lot of time off. He obviously doesn't play as many tournaments as a lot of other players, so his balance time with family will be easy to achieve.
I think he will do it good. It will be interesting for him and tough for the child as time goes on, too, because it's always tough being a child of a famous parent.

Q. In your own experience was it a juggling act to begin with to learn what you needed to do differently?
STUART APPLEBY: I look back and I don't remember a period being, oh, man, this is really tough. It's hard being a parent and it doesn't get any real easier any period of time. But my life had already been set and we just dragged our kids along to every tournament; we still do, so we made them fit into our lifestyle.
For now that works until something like school comes along and I have to deal with that and I don't know how that works, so there's periods. But you make your kids fit into your lifestyle and Tiger has plenty of room in the seats of the planes he flies on, I don't think the kid will have any problem. (Laughter) Kids; could be two, who knows.

Q. So many of your countrymen, you included, have had success on the PGA TOUR, and we almost take it for granted now, but the population numbers in Australia, it's pretty amazing to see how many great players have come out of there and continued -- do you have any they are easy as to why that is, whether it be climate or just the schooling or teaching or what have you?
STUART APPLEBY: I think there's a few reasons. I think America will always have the most -- certainly the most best players, the best intensity, quality of players worldwide just based on sheer numbers. And that's why it always will be that way because it's just the sheer numbers of golfers. It's going to happen. You're going to have just amazing players.
We certainly don't have that system, we don't have the ability to just pump them out. We have, what, 1/15th of the population of the U.S. With our training, our learning how to travel, our budget, our mechanics of our swings certainly have been different for quite a lot of years. We had a guy called Greg Norman who made a huge impact in promoting the game worldwide, six years straight No. 1, he was our man. He was Australian and that's been pretty tough on the players, a lot of pressure there. We don't have anyone like that right now to achieve that. Adam Scott is our potential, but you've got a guy called Tiger Woods on top of everybody.
There's a few things. I remember when I was first starting out, I had to learn how to budget to travel, to sort out how much money it cost. I had to buy equipment. I was given equipment very late in the piece and when I came over here against colleges in the States, they had brand new everything. They were given everything, they were budgeted everything, they had golf courses, stadiums. We had nothing; it was very different.
I certainly think that it was a lot harder for Australian golfers, and I think in a way, that toughened us up, because we knew to play against the best which was in America or Europe, we had to leave the nest, we had to move from Australia. We had to look at the states as home for a lot of us and a lot of us married American girls and so on.
It is a different system, it's a working system. Whether it get copied I don't know, but there's a lot of things. I think the coaching is there. And we had a role model.

Q. Can we go see the bag?
STUART APPLEBY: Yes, if you really want to see my yellow, beautiful Bridgestone bag, please be on the first tee.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thanks very much, Stuart.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297