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SHELL HOUSTON OPENMarch 30, 2007Jason GoreHUMBLE, TEXAS DOUG MILNE: Okay. We'd like to welcome Jason Gore, bettered your first round by two shots, shooting 68 today. Maybe just start off with some general comments and maybe take you through some of the highlights, starting on the back today. JASON GORE: General comments. Golf course played good. I mean, these are probably some of the best greens we'll putt all year and, you know, I made one bogey, and, of course, I missed a 4-footer. But every time you have a bogey-free round, my caddie owes me a free round of sushi. He was the only one happy I made bogey on that hole. You know, I played good. I didn't hit as good as I did yesterday, but, you know, that's kind of the way golf goes, and I'll hit it inside 10 feet a bunch yesterday and didn't make anything and didn't hit it so good and made a lot of putts today. It's a crazy game. That's really about it. DOUG MILNE: It's been somewhat of a struggle this year for you so far. Is there something that you could put your finger on that maybe clicked? JASON GORE: Besides the fact I changed 14 clubs and a golf ball? Yeah. You know, I was -- I just switched equipment companies. I just left Nike about I guess it will be four, five weeks ago, and, you know, when you have that much going on in your head, it's difficult to play well, and finally just had a couple weeks off to go home and play a lot of golf and spend very little time on the range and spent a lot of time out on the golf course just to get comfortable with my equipment again. And we got some stuff that really works out, and I'm back to the ball I played when I was winning, and, you know, I feel very comfortable again. DOUG MILNE: Good. Before we open it up, to questions, let's run through your birdies and bogies, if you don't mind. You had back-to-back birdies on 12 and 13, which would have been your third and fourth hole. If you could take us through some clubs there. JASON GORE: Really the hole was 11. I came up and under a shot and hit it in the water, chunked a 5-iron and holed a bunker shot for par from the front of the green. At that point I missed like a 6-footer on 10 for birdie and was all mad and went to the next hole, hit it in the water, and do that and all of a sudden I was all happy again. But I hit -- made about 12-something footer on 11 after playing up with 2-iron, hitting a hundred yard pitching wedge back to the pin to try to keep some of the spin off of it. What did I do on the par 5? I hit it in the left rough down there. I thought the wind was going to blow the drive but laid it up perfectly and made about a 15-footer after hitting a pretty good bunker shot, very scary with the slope behind it. DOUG MILNE: 15, is that the par 5 15th or the par 5 -- JASON GORE: Par 5 I hit a good drive down the middle, laid up down there with 3-wood. Had a little 40-yard pitch, hit it to 6 feet and hit 7-iron the second day in the row in the front bunker again like a moron. You think I would learn to hit 6, but naw. We'll learn tomorrow yesterday and still didn't learn. DOUG MILNE: Not a lot of birdies on 18. You were one of them. JASON GORE: Hit a good 3-wood down there, 8-iron in there. Made about a 12-footer, something like that. Like I said before, the greens are so good. You just got to get it rolling on your line. There's no question -- it's not going to do anything funny, that's for sure. DOUG MILNE: Last birdie was on the 5th hole, 480 yards. JASON GORE: Hit driver right down the right side and hit 7-iron to about 8 inches. So about 6 for 10 from that rank, 60 percent from 8 inches. DOUG MILNE: We'll just open it up, if you guys have any questions. Q. It looks like from looking at your stats, the only real part -- the putting looks like jumps out as the bugaboo. JASON GORE: It's sad, isn't it? Q. Can you talk about what's gone on there and what you've tried or are trying? JASON GORE: I know I'm a streaky putter, but when you're having 50, 60-footers all day, it's tough to really kind of gauge yourself. If you're hitting it 5 feet and averaging 1.9 putts per green, then you got some issues, but, you know, I just haven't really hit my irons close all year. Like I said, I was having a little trouble with trying to figure out the golf ball, and, you know, I've been struggling with that for a little while. The ball didn't fit me. I'm not saying it's a bad product or anything like that. It's a great product. The best player in the world uses it. It didn't work for me. It just was a lot of guess work, and, you know, I just feel very comfortable now and starting to hit some iron shots the way that I'm picturing in my mind. So, you know, I'm having more opportunities for birdie. Q. Can you define new stuff, Titleist ball, and what kind of clubs? JASON GORE: Right now it's clubs du jour. I'm playing Cobra irons and Cobra driver, the old Titleist Pro V1-X, the one from 2005. And Taylor-Made 3-wood, and I guess what is it, utility? Q. Rescue? JASON GORE: Thank you. I couldn't even tell you what shaft is in it. I know it's good, though. Q. How do you settle -- did you just trial and error on those things? JASON GORE: I threw every set to the bottom of the lake. Whichever one floated -- you know -- you know, being out here, you have the opportunity to hit a lot of stuff, and a lot of stuff is thrown in your face. But, you know, I just picked a set that just was visually -- and visually looked good to me, and they happened to work pretty well. So, you know, that's a good combo, and, you know, they're not much different than what I was playing before looks-wise and they work. I mean, so far. It's only been two days. Q. You definitely are not a feel player out of the equation. JASON GORE: Yeah. I couldn't tell you what the loft or lie of my 5-iron is. You know, I don't know. If it goes straight, it must be working. You know, we have very highly technical people out here that do that for us, thank goodness, and, you know, you got to trust them. If it doesn't work, you fix it. If it does, put it away. Don't touch it. Q. When you're struggling with the ball, how much of it is physical and how much is mental, just the challenge of sitting there saying, "Okay, something is not working, is it this? How do I make the change?" You know what I'm saying? JASON GORE: I would say probably 90 percent of it is physical. Only 10 percent is mental. If you hit one shot, it might have just been a fluke or whatever. But if you have -- if you start doubting what it's doing, then it becomes a hundred percent mental, and, you know, just -- once the club hits the ball, the ball is gone, and I may as well have bought a ticket. I'm a spectator at that point. You can't control it. We're outside. Crazy crap happens. You got to have some idea, and I just really didn't have any idea. Especially for me going into the wind, I'm a high-spinning guy and I'm pretty steep, but I got a 52-inch chest and not very long arms. There's no other way I can swing it, you know. But I'm kind of handcuffed in that sense. But, you know, you got to have some idea of what window it's going to go through, that imaginary window you want to be able to see it go through there, and you think, I just was hitting shots that just weren't reacting the way -- when I would hit good shots. Perfectly fine with making a bad swing and hitting a bad shot because I know that's operator error and that happens. But when I hit a good shot, I want to see something good happen instead of just hoping and guessing and praying. Q. Jason, how did Pinehurst change your life? JASON GORE: In what sense? Q. Golf career, your personal life. Did it change the way people treated you? Or give you confidence? JASON GORE: It definitely did give me confidence. This is the first time in my life I actually realized that I can play at this level. You always have these doubts and stuff like that because I hadn't done anything. I was a decent college player and won a bunch on the Nationwide Tour. You never kind of get over that slope, and, you know, that was really what it was. I competed against the best players in the world on a great golf course and was beating them. It only lasted for three days, but it was -- Q. It didn't really last three days. There was a carryover, right? JASON GORE: Sure. It was just once I got back to the Nationwide Tour and I realized that I would never, ever be blindsided like that again. Here I am with my first basically final group in any kind of Major golf event, let alone a Major, playing with Retief Goosen in the last round of the U.S. Open, the last group. I knew no matter what I do for the rest of my life, I will never ever be surprised again. Once I got in the final group of a Nationwide Event, it was like, you know what, I've been here; I've seen worse; this is not going to be that bad, and just go back to playing golf again. I'm not worried about winning or worried about doing this. I knew that what I had learned in the Open about going out and trying to win the Open. You don't win golf courses. You just play 72 holes, and if you have the lowest score, they give you a trophy. You just have to keep playing golf and never get ahead of yourself and never really get into the future because nothing is ever guaranteed, especially out here. Q. What are your memories of the final day? Good, bad, or surreal? JASON GORE: Blurred. It seemed like everything was going so slow, like we could not finish fast enough. Just like "Gosh, what hole are we on? Only 13? Good Lord." But it all happened so fast. It was an unbelievable experience. It was one of those things as a professional golfer, that's our drug. That's our addiction is to get into that -- to get into that mode and to be so nervous that you can't see straight and hit something and feel that -- I can't even describe it. Just to feel that satisfaction of, you know, this is what I've worked my whole life to do, and now I have an opportunity to do it and then do it, and that's the cool part about it. Q. Were you ever able to take a moment that day to hang around and notice that people were yelling your name, you were on the center stage of what you always wanted to do? JASON GORE: Yeah. I mean, at that point it was so crazy, you could not. Q. I didn't know if you enjoyed it or not. JASON GORE: It was difficult to, you know -- you really can't let your guard down around that place, especially. What a hard golf course, you know, but, you know, walking off tees and those kind of things, hearing people saying your name, just kind of giving them a thumbs up or whatever, but, you know, people were phenomenal to me. Still to this day, they're great. You know, somebody asked me out there why is it? I don't know. Q. Asks you what? JASON GORE: Why people still are rooting for me. I don't know. Maybe they feel sorry for me. I don't know. Maybe it's just because I actually do enjoy playing golf and I struggle just like everybody else, and, you know, nothing was really ever handed to me, any kind of -- just love doing what I do. Q. Do you think you appreciate it more because it was a hard slide to get to this point in your career? Just appreciate what you have? JASON GORE: There's no question. I mean, this is everything I dreamed of. Every day I get to wake up and say, "You know what? I get to go play golf today." If somebody is going to be crazy enough to pay me to do it, that's even better, but they haven't paid me in a while to do it. But, you know, this is the greatest job in the world. Even though it's like standing up against the wall and beating your head against it, but sometimes that wall will move, and that's why we do it. DOUG MILNE: Anybody got anything else? Q. What does a day like this, a couple days like this, do? We were talking to Justin yesterday, he had been struggling quite a bit, too, and things kind of kicked in for him yesterday. Do you just start thinking "Well, maybe, maybe, maybe" or -- JASON GORE: Sure. I mean, it's a crazy game. You just have to keep -- you know, you're only as good as the last round you played. You know, it doesn't mean we're bad people because we haven't broke 77 all year. It's a game, and, you know, that's why we sit on the range and that's why you see guys Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, every day out here, working their butt off. Because it's what we do, and we always have that glimmer of hope that this could be our week, or it's one person is going to walk away being the 2007 Shell Houston Open winner. And you sit in your room and lie in bed and think, "Why can't that be me?" You know, every week, every Wednesday night we go to bed dreaming about that. You're supposed to wake up Thursday morning and do one at a time. That's the hard part about it because we always do have these delusions of grandeur and stuff like that. You have to completely shut it off and accept it and go out and hit your first tee shot and find that one and hit your second shot and move forward. The hardest thing is to realize that the final putt on Sunday means the same as a tap-in for par on your third hole on Thursday. So, it all counts as one, and you hope that the next one is even better than the one you just had. Q. From the standpoint of changing the equipment and making that decision -- because Justin changed coaches, you changed equipment. So just kind of maybe, you know -- what's the word I'm looking for -- validates everything? JASON GORE: Went back to my old guy, too, to see my buddy, Mike Miller, just two, three weeks ago. Gosh, play golf with a guy every day; can't get rid of him. You know, I just think -- you got to go back to what you trust and believe. If you know something is wrong -- if you think something is wrong, chances are it is. You just have to listen to your body and listen to yourself and trust yourself. That's the hardest thing to do sometimes is actually to think you're not crazy, and sometimes you just got to, I guess, flush the toilet, start over, and that's kind of what I did. Q. Your last couple years, it seems like it's either been amazing highs from getting on the run at the U.S. Open, the run on the Nationwide Tour, winning out here quickly and then lows and missing cuts and not very much in between. Have your insides been going like that (indicating)? JASON GORE: Want to put these shoes on? That's just always kind of been me, though. I don't know. I think Magic Mountain is going to name a rollercoaster after me. You know, I've never been a guy who starts the year off hot. I've always been a slow starter. I'm a West Coast guy. I play like crap on the West Coast. I have no idea. I'm the only guys that lives in Southern California that can't read a line of greens. I don't know why it is. I always seem to -- you know, man of my stature is what I'll say, shouldn't like the heat and humidity. For some reason I play better in it, and I don't know. I can't explain it. It always kind of takes me awhile. Doesn't matter how hard I work in the off-season. I lost 20 pounds in the off-season and then worked my butt off and practiced every day, and the next thing I know, I come out and stink, you know. I mean, that was the roughest part. I'm a high and low guy and ride the highs as long as I can and hopefully the -- each time the lows come, they won't be as bad as they were last time. Q. When you went back to Mike Miller, was there one thing you wanted him to specifically to fix? JASON GORE: I wanted him to slap me pretty hard. It was just one of those things. I was trying to do something that I'm not physically able to do, and, you know, this is the way I swing, this is it, just get some of the bugs out of it and trust it. I think I'm a pretty good ball striker. When I go try to be something I'm not, it just starts to throw another problem in the hole. Q. You were trying to be what? JASON GORE: Something I wasn't, you know, just trying to be too perfect. This is not a game of that. You just hit shots, and, you know, we work so hard on the range, on the putting green and chipping green, all this stuff that we do out there. So when we get out to the golf course, it can just be second nature, and, you know, when you're out there thinking, "Well, you know, maybe I'm not getting it here," you're screwed. You just go out and pick your target, and I know how to hit a draw, but I couldn't tell you how I do it. I do this. Sometimes you just got to trust your body. It knows what to do, hopefully. Q. Can't wait to read your golf instruction book. JASON GORE: It's going to be a best seller. It's going to be "How do you hit a hook?" I don't know. Aim right. Q. Whack it out there? JASON GORE: Yeah. Q. You referenced the greens. How is the pace today as compared to yesterday? JASON GORE: They're pretty similar. I thought the course conditions this morning played very similar to yesterday afternoon, which was kind of nice and consistent. You know, they're pretty firm when you're coming in with middle irons and long irons and stuff like that. When you have lob wedges or sand wedges, whatever, they're pretty receptive. They're actually spinning a little bit. I think that they are perfect. They're great speed, and with the undulation, got them in great spots, they're tucked. What is it par 5 5th or something like that, is that a par 5? DOUG MILNE: Four. JASON GORE: That pin is over in the corner. You've got three shaved sides over there. You're looking at a 60-yard wedge. I'm thinking "I can't hit this close." I'm going to aim a 60-yard wedge, 20 feet right because I don't want it spinning back in the water or -- the golf course is set up wonderfully right now. Q. When you're talking about trying to be or do things you couldn't, was that kind of a response to trying not to be so much boom and bust, trying to think you could be more of a consistent -- JASON GORE: We always try to be as consistent as we can. I think I can be consistent. I just got to be myself. What I'm doing is not rocket science. It's not a secret. It's not anything -- you just dig it out of the ground. Really, my putter has got a mind of its own sometimes, but it doesn't mean I'm a bad putter. I think I'm a pretty good putter. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn't. I didn't make many putts yesterday, but I hit a lot of good ones. It's golf. It's outside. You're on the grass. Three things that aren't suitable for scoring, you know. If we're on a pool table, I can make putts all day but -- which we're pretty close to being on, but it's golf and that's -- it's a horrible answer, but it's about all I got. DOUG MILNE: Okay. Anybody else? Alright, Jason, thanks for coming in. End of FastScripts |
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