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SONY OPEN IN HAWAIIJanuary 14, 2007Paul GoydosHONOLULU, HAWAII JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Like to welcome the champion of the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii, Paul Goydos. Second career victory and the first one since the 1996 Bay Hill Invitational. I'm sure it's been a long time coming, but I'm sure you're ecstatic about the result, maybe some opening comments about today. PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, as I said on TV, I set some goals and one of my goals was to win every decade, and so far I've accomplished that. (Laughter). I'm stunned. I mean, I got off to a slow start and I was just trying to hang in there and just, you know, try to take it one shot at a time, sounds like a cliché, but things weren't going well early. You know, I'm stunned. I'm still stunned. It's 20 minutes later. After the third hole, I really played pretty good. I don't think I made a 5 after the third hole and just kept grinding it out, grinding it out, grinding it out. And lucky I made a couple long ones on 15 and 16, and got as lucky as you can get on 18. The chip shot missed the flagstick, it goes at least as far by as Charles' ball did. And lucky the ball hit the hole, too, had a good chance of going in. So I feel very fortunate to be sitting here right now. Q. Not to get caught up in detail here, but is it a lucky break that it hit the stick or a bad break it didn't go in? PAUL GOYDOS: Lucky break. I'm lucky it did not stick over. I never thought, wow, it could go in. That never crossed my mind. I looked up -- said "oh." No. Q. Were you worried when it came off your club too hard? PAUL GOYDOS: Now you're really getting into -- I'm trying to be more process-oriented than result-oriented. So trying to you know, rehearse the swing I'm trying to make there and I want to make the same thing and not really thinking about the result. That's my goal, anyway, and I did a reasonably good job of that especially coming in. Q. Can you fathom 11 years, 246 tournaments without winning? PAUL GOYDOS: It feels like 11 years, 246 tournaments to be honest with you. Someone mentioned about perseverance; this is my job. This is what I do. We're trying to win the other 246 times. It wasn't like I was trying to finish 33rd and miss the cut by ten. Our goals are to go out and do your work and play the best golf that you can. And to be honest part of -- not that this pertains to me because I really haven't had that many good chances. But you do have to get some good things happen in order to win and today definitely had some good things happen, obviously starting with the chip. So not only did I play pretty well, but the last few holes, the breaks went my way. Q. Talking about those last few holes, can you describe your emotions and how difficult it was to keep focused going birdie, birdie, 15, 16 and then stumbling on 17? PAUL GOYDOS: You know, I didn't really notice my position in the event to be honest with you. The last time I saw a leaderboard, I want to say Charles Howell was 15-under, and there's a leaderboard on 15 and it's behind a tree. Have to talk to them about that. But I got over that putt and I think I saw that, at that point I did get a glimpse at it and saw that I was near the lead. And okay, see if we can, but just try to stay in the moment. The result is in the future, and I'm trying to just get over the putt on 15. You're not thinking -- it may have been 25 feet, 30 feet. You're not thinking about making it. Just good speed, here is your line and hit it. The fact that it went in, you make a 30-footer over grass, there's some luck involved. You can hit the same putt again and miss. 16, I hit as good a 3-wood as I can hit, and hey, this is what I need to do. Let's just keep plugging and hit a pretty good 9-iron in there and left myself probably as easy a 20-footer as you're going to have on that green. I looked up and saw the leaderboard and I was tied for the lead. Again, 13-under was not going to win the tournament. Even though I'm 13, that's not going to win. So being tied for the lead, really in a sense you're not; you're really behind, if that makes sense. So get in there and do the same thing, pick your line and try to have good speed and good rhythm and hang in there and I hut a good putt there and really rolled out. I thought I left it short but it went in. 17 I didn't hit that bad a shot. I hit 6-iron and pushed it. Got into a pretty funny lie in the bunker to be perfectly honest with you. I thought I hit a good bunker shot, didn't hit a great putt but those are things that happen. 6-iron is the club I have to play to the right, I can't carry it off the bunker. 5-iron, then you can't play right, you have to play more toward the flag and I didn't think I could keep it on the green. To me the play is to hit it 25 or 30 feet right of the hole and that's what my game had on that hole. Irrespective of my position in the tournament, that's the shot to play, and I just pushed it a little, hit it pretty solid, just pushed it a little bit. 18, I hit an okay 3-wood, another pretty good 3-wood, left what I thought was in a pretty good shot, chipped up the hill a little bit and caught the chip maybe a hair thin and the rest is history. Emotionally, I guess maybe that's why I was able to be successful today is that there weren't any per se. I was nervous but I wasn't necessarily afraid or happy. The emotions were, this is the next shot at hand. Maybe the weeks when I struggle, maybe there's more emotion evolved, but today was just a function of -- especially down the stretch, I was very good at being process-oriented. Q. You've been playing for years; do the years start to run together after a while or do you have sort of, let's close the chapter on this year and let's start again? PAUL GOYDOS: I couldn't tell you where I finished in this tournament 2000 to be honest with you. But yeah, I mean, you use your previous years as experience. I remember on 17, when I hit it in the bunker, I was thinking there, hey, at Bay Hill on 15 I had a lead and I hit it in the right green-side bunker there and hit it out about 15 feet and I made that putt. This one I missed but start thinking, hey, you've been in this position before, let's keep doing it. So you use -- the past is a tool that you use to try to get better, I guess, for lack of a better word. Q. You struggled a lot last year and played well at the end, is there anything you picked up at the last event last year? PAUL GOYDOS: I wish I knew. I wish I knew. Just I'm a firm believer that the game ebbs and flows. You have peaks and valleys, and I had a reasonably long valley last year and hopefully right now we're riding toward what's going to be a mesa. (Laughter). You just got that, didn't you. Just kept hitting the ball better and doing the work I've been doing all year. I think practising golf for me is something that shows up later. When good things are happening in practise, it usually doesn't translate into good golf maybe for a month or so. I played well a few weeks before Tampa and just had some good things going and made some putts. You can't discount some luck in there, too. Q. Is there any simple explanation why it's been 11 years, beyond the obvious? PAUL GOYDOS: Beyond talent? (Laughter) That's just who I am. I haven't played well and I've got myself in a chance to play well and I haven't finished. I've had three for our probably didn't chances to win, I don't know. I think I read in the paper I had five or six 36-hole leads in my career and that surprised me. Just hasn't happened. Maybe I'm going to win five of my next ten starts and all of a sudden that evens out. Maybe that's the way it's going to work out, I don't know. But you know, we're going to just keep grinding, keep trying to get better and that's really your ultimate goal. Q. Do you have any kind of feeling before the round today on the practise green or range that today was going to be a good day or a bad day? PAUL GOYDOS: I felt better today than I did yesterday to be honest with you. I felt reasonably good about my game and I thought, you know, this is a golden opportunity. You're 42 years old, been playing 15 years, let's not play like this is your first rodeo. Let's go out and you know what you're capable of and see what you can do. Of course I started out 3-putt, par, 3-putt. But in defense, I think that's really where maybe ten years ago, I would have said, maybe folded up. But this year, it's going to happen, and everyone is going to struggle at times; you struggled yearly, let's get it going. Q. This might be meaningless, but what about the birdie on 9 with the chip? I didn't see what your lie was like but you clearly weren't happy with the chip. PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, I just kind of didn't hit a good pitch. Maybe that might have been a little bit -- I look at that as a mental mistake, wasn't as prepared as I should have been to hit the shot. That's the one putt I stood over today and said, you know what if you're going to do well, if you're going to do something, make this putt. I felt as confident over this putt; you talk about my issues with my putting, that's as good as I felt over a putt definitely all week and maybe ever. I hit that putt -- as soon as I hit that putt, you know, I didn't want to early call myself, but that was going to be center as soon as I hit it. That's just one of those things. Every once in awhile in this game, you'll get a putt and you look at it, it's one of those things you know it's going in. That putt was pure and going in. Q. In the past you had some medical exemptions? PAUL GOYDOS: I had what's called a medical extension after the 2003 year. I had sinus surgery in spring of 2004. It was just getting to the point where, you know, your fatigue level when you have a sinus injury goes from 100% to 99 to 98; you don't notice it, and all of the sudden you have trouble getting out of bed. I was almost completely blocked. I still have problems, I have hand problems and all of these other little minor injuries but I think that's part of being 42 more than anything else. Q. Not to regurgitate, but the substitute teaching, that was before Bay Hill? PAUL GOYDOS: I was doing that before I got on Tour, that was late 80s, very early 90s. Probably the last time I substitute taught was probably the first event on the Nationwide Tour in '92 it was the Yuma Open and I think I was like the tournament open on Monday. Tournaments then used to start on Friday. I substitute taught on Monday and Tuesday and got a call Wednesday saying I was in the tournament. So I drove out there Wednesday, didn't play -- I didn't play a practise round, just practised. The Pro-Am was honey Thursday and won. Haven't substituted since. Q. Maybe that's been the problem? PAUL GOYDOS: There you go. Q. This tournament is going to be remembered for and you for Tadd Fujikawa; curious, what do you have in common with him? PAUL GOYDOS: Hawaiian, we're both Hawaiian. (Laughter.) I got a chance to meet him at breakfast yesterday, seemed like a really good kid. I don't know, I really don't know him so I'm not going to make those kind of statements. My understanding is he hits it farther than me and hits it better than me. (Laughter). So I read somewhere, maybe I misread; he hit like a -- when he made eagle on Friday on 18, he hit a short iron, I hit a 6-iron. Obviously our games are not the same. (Laughter). 16 years old, he shot 5-under, where did he finish, top 20? I certainly wasn't going to finish 5-under at the Sony Open when I was 16 years old. That wasn't going to happen. I think the future is going to be bright for that kid, and the nice thing is from what I can tell, he's a really good kid and a really nice person. That's really what's important. He should be very, very proud and his parents should be very, very proud of him. Q. Did you play in this event last year? PAUL GOYDOS: Yes. Q. How did your mind-set and your golf game compare last year versus this year coming to the tournament? PAUL GOYDOS: I couldn't tell you what my mind-set was last year. I'm getting old. I didn't have a second place finish in the last event previous year and I've been kind of building up. So I would have to say I felt much better about myself and about my game obviously coming in this year than last year. First of the year, if you don't do your work -- I like this golf course obviously. This is a tournament where I probably have more Top-10 finishes than any other in my career, have to look that up, I'm sure they have that on ShotLink somewhere, so I always feel pretty good playing here. This year obviously starting the second round, things started going in the right direction and I was able to kind of keep -- get out of my own way and keep it going. Q. When does it sink in or does it or has it? PAUL GOYDOS: That question I always think about, I don't know, it probably will sink in later on. I was hoping to get some sleep on this flight and I have a bad feeling that ain't going to happen. You know, my answer to that question is, the excitement that I get out of golf about winning in a sense ended on the 18th green. The exciting part of what we do is doing it, not basking in the glory of what we did. That doesn't really excite me that much. What excites me is testing myself, going out and playing the game, especially I think this golf course again, very challenging, you have a lot of different things you have to do out here. That to me is the high that you get from winning is the competition per se, not the interviews and not the people shaking your hands. Those things are nice, but that's not why -- that's really not what gets my juices flowing. Q. Wasn't suggesting this interview wasn't the highlight of the week by any means. (Laughter) PAUL GOYDOS: What it is is the dessert. This is the dessert. The meat and potatoes happened, finished up half an hour ago. Now I get a little dessert. You get your ego rubbed a little bit and you get to hang out with the Miss Hawaiian Girls, things like that. But the real joy was, you know, trying to get myself to hit putts and make putts and hit shots and do all those things. Q. Given we're in a new era of the FedExCup, any thoughts of changing your plan to once every five years? PAUL GOYDOS: It's been a work-in-progress, let's go with that. But yeah, I think that this is a new era, that's what the TOUR keeps telling us, and the FedExCup is exciting. It's going to bring hopefully more viewers to the game and hopefully be able to get out in the forefront and have a good week right out of the box, and win one of the first events, that's part of what's going to sink in over the next few days. It's a pretty big deal. First full-field event in the FedExCup, that's pretty cool. Q. Most of the guys have Titleist or Nike or Callaway; you have a flag on your hat; tell us about it. PAUL GOYDOS: The American flag. I'm actually working, I don't know, I many working on a bag ask hat deal, it's a company called PEP Boys. This is the hat I actually wore at Tampa. Q. Don't take it off. PAUL GOYDOS: What is it is the maker, I like the maker of this hat. I don't know where I got this particular one, but American flag, that's a good sign. Q. Does that mean you have a ball -- PAUL GOYDOS: I have a deal with Titleist, ball and shoe and glove and actually the driver, also. Q. It's a bit eclectic in your bag. PAUL GOYDOS: Yes, those are my tools of ignorance. We need to make sure -- those 14 clubs to me are what we do, and to me if somebody offered me -- they offer you a couple hundred grand to switch equipment, I'm playing for 280 million; that doesn't make any sense. I want to play with the 14 clubs I think I'm going to have the best chance of competing with and if that ends up costing me money in endorsements, so be it. I feel I have a better chance of making a living playing the game than selling the product. Q. Outside of the drivers, are those all relatively old clubs for you? PAUL GOYDOS: The irons, I actually switched irons. This is a set I've never played with in a tournament. This is the first tournament, but it's the same exact hat as I used end of last year. TaylorMade irons, and I switched, August; I played reasonably well with them and I like the way they look. It wasn't that they offered me money. They are the clubs I like to play. Q. Not the same irons you used at Tampa? PAUL GOYDOS: Slightly different. Just cosmetic. Q. Does it matter where you play? In other words you probably haven't been to Firestone in quite a long time. I don't know when the last time you played in the PGA Championship, this win will get you in Kapalua, Memorial; does that matter to you? PAUL GOYDOS: Those are nice perks, absolutely. I was at the PGA. Then the four majors -- I don't know the eligibility status to be honest with you, of the World Golf Championships. I know the Match Play is the top 65 in the world or 64 in the world. Other than that, I don't know the eligibility process of getting into those. I am a part-time golfer and a full-time parent so my schedule will work around parenting. I've got to figure all that stuff out. Q. Do you have both girls? PAUL GOYDOS: Two girls. Q. How does that work in where are they this week? PAUL GOYDOS: They are with their aunt and uncle at their house which is only five minutes from my house. They have been wonderful. They watch my kids basically the last half of last year and first event of this year. They are actually going to come out next week so that's good. Q. Are they kind of full-time while you're playing? PAUL GOYDOS: They are the one who is watch my kids when I play. They have done a fantastic job. Q. What kind of adjustment has that been for you over the last couple years? PAUL GOYDOS: It is what it is. I'm a full-time dad and that's just the way it is. I'm happy with the finish I had last year. I played 24 events and that really isn't what my goals are, would like to par that down to 15 or 20, but I kind of felt I had to. I didn't like being in that position. I played last four events, I had not played four events in a row since 2001, maybe before that. That's just the reality and we work around it. My kids are doing fine. They are older now, which makes it a little bit easier. They understand daddy has to go to work. Q. Were you able to sneak home after Disney, after Greensboro last year? PAUL GOYDOS: After Greensboro I went home for a day or two and then I went to Vegas. Then I didn't come home until after Tampa. A friends of mine has a charity event in Oregon, Brian Henning (ph), at Bandon Dunes (ph) so after that I went down to Disney and made a mess of that tournament and obviously played pretty good at Tampa. Q. Have you spoken to the kids in the past half hour? PAUL GOYDOS: No. They said I had to come in here. I guess there's probably a deadline for you guys. But I'll give them a call here in a minute. Q. On that note. PAUL GOYDOS: Okay. Thanks. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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