	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

SHELL HOUSTON OPEN

March 29, 2007

Justin Leonard

HUMBLE, TEXAS

JOE CHEMYCZ: Okay. We welcome Justin Leonard. Bogey-free round today, 67. Just talk a little bit about the day and then we'll open it for some questions.
JUSTIN LEONARD: Just nice to see the work that I've been putting in start to pay off a little bit.
My game has been not as far off as you might think. You know, the difference between missing by a couple shots and making it by a couple shots are, you know, 28 footers a round, which isn't much to ask for, but today was, you know, obviously the best I played all year and maybe the best I've played in a year and a half.
And so just enjoyed the day and hit it solid and hit it where I needed to and made a few putts.
JOE CHEMYCZ: Questions?

Q. Justin, was the putting -- sounds to me like you were really making some like kind of testers where it kind of got you going. Has that been the biggest thing and did it?
JUSTIN LEONARD: You know, I think something that Randy and I figured out last week was that, you know, I've been struggling with my putting but I've been putting too much pressure on it with my iron play.
When you're only hitting eight to 11 greens a round and, you know, six of those are from 30 feet, you know, with only three, four birdie chances a round, you know, there's a sense of urgency and, you know, when you're putting, that's not what you need.
So, we've kind of talked about working balls into pins and hitting a lot of greens so that I can get into a rhythm and not feel the pressure of, okay, this is one of my four chances today, I better do something with it.
You know, I just kind of had the attitude, well, I'm going to hit as good a putt as I can. If it doesn't go in, I'm going to have a putt on the next hole at it.
So, it's a lot easier to play with that kind of mindset.

Q. You stayed loyal to one putter over the years?
JUSTIN LEONARD: No.

Q. Do you change a lot?
JUSTIN LEONARD: I don't change a lot, but I change a little bit.

Q. You looked very comfortable out there today. Did you and Randy make any major swing changes? You just looked good over the ball all day.
JUSTIN LEONARD: We made a grip change. My grip had gotten too weak, and from there I had shut the club on the way back, which caused a lot of the issues that I've been having ball striking, not being able to hit the ball solid, not being able to control how much it was going to curve.
So strengthen my grip, and I'm able to get the club in a better position on the way back, and then from there, I can hit a lot of different shots and I'm really focusing on controlling the height of the ball.
I'd become too reliant on just hitting full shots regardless of the yardage. Always if I was between clubs, going to the lesser club and trying to hit it hard, and now I'm going the other way.
So, just trying to be a little more -- think my way around a little better, and because of that, I focus better. I get into the round more, and so no huge changes but enough to, you know, to work at it really hard and get comfortable with it.
Grip change, even if it's minor, it always feels pretty major.
Seeing a round like this today will certainly help me feel a little more comfortable about it.

Q. Justin, you were talking up there when you're working with Randy last week, getting some of the old feelings back. I wonder how many -- how much of that old feelings are you talking about are swing feelings and how much is kind of mental state of mind?
JUSTIN LEONARD: It's probably 10 percent swing feelings, and it's probably 90 percent just the surroundings, being at Royal Oaks on the back of the range, and, you know, Randy's enthusiasm, as my dad said the other day, it's just as contagious.
You know, we go over the short game area, and he's purposely trying to frustrate me, giving me the most difficult shot he can imagine. You know, I get on the golf course and everything feels easy after everything I've been through with him.
Just -- it's just familiar and, you know, we really talked about the mindset of playing the golf course and hitting different shots and, you know, talking the same thing with Dick Coop, who is a sports psychologist out of Raleigh, started visiting with three weeks ago. I spent a day with him last week, and we talked all about, you know, visualizing shots.
I had gotten into "There's my target, I'm going to start it there," rather than really seeing the whole shot and getting into it.
So, with Coop, our session, and then Randy, and I'm kind of continuing that throughout the week. It's actually been a lot of fun, you know, visualizing shots and trying to match that up.

Q. You talk about what led you back to Randy and what led you to Dick. Was there a moment like you said you need to make some changes or kind of a gradual process?
JUSTIN LEONARD: You know, I have to credit David Winkle for that one. David is my agent in Dallas, and I talked to him on Friday night after Tampa.
He's very good friends with Butch, but he just said are you getting all that you need and I just -- I thought about it that night and I said, you know what, I'm not.
Nothing against Butch. I wouldn't change our relationship for the world because I learned a lot from him, but, you know, with his dad -- not wrote but said in the book that Butch wrote, you know, you never blame a guy for wanting to get new and more information and trying to get better.
So, he took it very well, but it was -- that night just looking at, I've tried to stay patient, I've tried to stay the course. That's not working.
So, it was Saturday morning I started making some phone calls.

Q. You're still in Tampa?
THE WITNESS: Yeah.

Q. You don't make decisions like this sort of lightly. There's major things in your career. How hard was it to call Randy?
JUSTIN LEONARD: That was the easy phone call. Actually, it was a little hard because there was this little thought in my mind that he's going to say, "You know what, Bud, I just ain't got time for you."
That was a very small thought. But Randy was the easy phone call. You know, it was talking with Brent Everson, my old caddie, talking with Butch, those were the two hard phone calls.

Q. Justin, it felt different right off working with Randy, the first time you got back together with him? Did you feel different right off?
JUSTIN LEONARD: You know, just -- there's a familiarity and there's -- well, I'm not going to go there.
There's -- when you get used to something when, you're young and something you do for a long time, when you make changes, it's easier to go back to what you know, and you know because there's a familiarity there, I think that breeds confidence.
You know, we had a lot of fun working together last week and this week.

Q. Justin, what's the new caddie?
JUSTIN LEONARD: Brian Smith.

Q. So Justin when were you struggling, it was just -- was it no fun coming to the course, or did you feel today will be another -- a new start?
JUSTIN LEONARD: I did. I learned a lot. I did a really good job of trying to learn from whatever happened the day before and get to the golf course and say, okay, I'm going to make that better.
You know, I had a lot of, you know, some pretty tough nights trying to shake some of it off, but it was closer than my scores really appeared. So that, I think, because of that, it was easier to get up and get positive each day.

Q. When you were at the top of your game, you weren't married, right, at that time?
JUSTIN LEONARD: True.

Q. What impact does marriage, family have? What's the impact on your golf?
JUSTIN LEONARD: It's -- you really -- for me, I really have to focus on, you know, separating the two. When I'm on the golf course, it's about playing golf. Whatever I need to do to get that done.
When I'm off the golf course, it's all about my wife and my kids. So it's great because when I am off the golf course, I get totally away from it because I don't have time to think about it with three kids.
So it's -- but, you know, is that the reason I've struggled? I don't know. I think, you know, last summer towards the end of Amanda's pregnancy with Luke, she was on bedrest and there were some issues, and right after he was born, there were some issues.
So I kind of -- I know last summer that had a big affect on how I played, but, you know, this year, everybody is healthy and happy and growing. It just hasn't been my time.

Q. What do you think a day like this does for you big picture?
JUSTIN LEONARD: It's a round that I can build on. You know, I don't feel like I'm over any hump. But I got a whole lot closer to it today and, you know, it's one of those rounds that I need to -- I need to expect to play like this, not that I'm going to every day. I know I'm not going to every day, but I need to get the golf course expecting to hit good shots and make putts.
And today for some reason, after the work that I've put in the last ten days, I kind of expected to play well, and that's -- it hasn't been like that this year. It's a nice change of pace.

Q. Kind of add to your comfort level to be so close to home?
JUSTIN LEONARD: Yeah. It's nice. My dad and I just been hanging out this week, and it's nice. It's always nice to play close to home.

Q. Justin, how much is what you're doing now is going back to what you technically were doing before?
JUSTIN LEONARD: We're not going to try and change my swing back to the way I went at it when we were working together. Because I've -- my body has changed, I'm stronger than ever. I don't have a need to swing like that anymore to try to generate club head speed. I'm able to do it the way I swing now.
I think the grip tweak and there's little things here or there, and it's -- again, it's -- he's a great mechanical, technical instructor, but I need to get back to playing with feel. And he knows how to -- you can't teach feel, but you can talk about it when you're working on things, and that's the thing that we've really been working on is how to feel certain shots and then, you know, make those happen.
JOE CHEMYCZ: Okay. Justin, quickly, just your birdies starting at 2 and 3 there.
JUSTIN LEONARD: 2, I hit a 5-iron just over the green, chipped in from 25 feet.
3, I hit a -- I think it was a 9-iron about 12 feet.
JOE CHEMYCZ: 7.
JUSTIN LEONARD: 7, I hit a 6-iron about 15 feet.
12, I hit a sand wedge 12 feet.
13, I hit a sand wedge about 20 feet.

Q. Any real danger of a bogey today?
JUSTIN LEONARD: Yeah. I hit it in the water off the tee on 8 and laid it up and had a pitching wedge about 15 feet and made that for par. So I felt like a birdie.

Q. What did the shot on 2 do confidence-wise, get you going on a good day?
JUSTIN LEONARD: I missed the first green, had to get up and down from the front bunker, and it was an okay shot the second hole, not the one I wanted to -- to be able to chip in like that. Those are the ones that have been spinning out that I missed the putt.
Nice to pick up a shot like that and then to follow-up on the next hole and make a putt. It really to got the day off to a good shot.
JOE CHEMYCZ: Okay, Justin. Thank you. Play well the rest of the week.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297