	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

TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 21, 2007

Bob Heintz

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Bob, for joining us here for a few minutes here in the media center at the Travelers Championship. You started on 10, a little hiccup on 17 with that double bogey, but played the front nine beautifully, 31. What did you do?
BOB HEINTZ: I don't know, I hit the ball in the fairway quite a bit. My competitors were having a hard time, Tom Johnson and Jaco Van Zyl. I was thinking to myself, it doesn't feel that hard out here, and then I realized I hit the fairway quite a bit. It just seems like I had, 8-iron, 9-iron, wedge all day, and every time I looked up they were on the flag. I had to have five putts inside six, seven feet for birdie, so I managed to clean all those up, and it felt easy for once.

Q. What exactly happened on 17? It was a nice comeback, but what went awry?
BOB HEINTZ: I generally fade my driver, so I should be able to paint that bunker and let it fall into the fairway with that left-to-right wind today, regardless I didn't do a good job. I hit it in the bunker and it was in kind of a rake rut, but the sand was so fluffy that we -- and my caddie's name is Jeff, and I decided to go for it. I thought we should chip it down the fairway maybe. And the more I looked at it, I more I thought I have to hit enough of this ball to get it over the water.
We 6-iron from only about 168, which is way more than enough club, and I kind of babied it really, and I caught it thin and it just never got over. It was a poor decision. We probably should have just chipped it down and made five at the worse, but I made it worse by making my worse golf swing of the day as well on top of that.
But it was kind of neat. I just started working with somebody and I allowed myself to be upset for about ten steps and then I let it go. I got up on 18 and fired one right down the middle and got kind of right back to where I was. It was really nice to turn around and hit it pretty close the first three holes on the next nine, and I completely forgot I had made double at all.

Q. You said you were working with somebody.
BOB HEINTZ: I'm becoming the Sea Island gang, Jay Bird and Schwartzrock and Davis Love, there's a whole bunch of guys that are either living there or working with Todd Anderson, who is the swing guy, and then you have got Mike Shannon, who is a short game putting guru.
I just spent a few hours two or three weeks ago with Morris Pickens, who is their psychologist there. So the Sea Island Company and Resort is really trying to gather that market with teaching, and there you go.
Morris told me I'm allowed to be mad, but only within a certain area, and once I get out of that area I have to let it go. So good job, Morris.

Q. When was the last time you were this high up on the leaderboard?
BOB HEINTZ: I don't know, but I'm enjoying sitting in the room with you guys. I scatter my name in there once in a while. I had some good tournaments two years ago, Vancouver and San Antonio, where I finished either in the top 10 or right there, so I played with Vijay in Vancouver on the last day, and I got a little bit of air time on Sunday in San Antonio. So I've kind of nibbled at it. But it's fun to do here where I'm familiar with a lot of people because I went to school up here.

Q. Who was with you?
BOB HEINTZ: My wife Nancy, my mother Elsa, and my dad Bob, that's it. There was a fellow who I met down in Tampa, just a regular old golf nut who popped his head in there with three or four holes to go and said hello, but the folks from Yale are busy, they have some tournaments. They have like the member/guest down there this weekend, so I won't plan on seeing them.

Q. You said it felt easy for once. How does that fit into how you're working out with Morris? Are you supposed to be positive or more reflective?
BOB HEINTZ: Way less reflective. I tend to spend the entire four and a half, five hours I'm out there totally engrossed in what's going on. His concept is that when I'm done with the shot and done reacting to the shot, I'm supposed to basically space out and talk about houses and nature and anything else up until I'm supposed to start collecting information for the next shot. And that's hard for me. I don't do that very well. I'm constantly, how did that wind feel, did it change. I'm always trying to collect information, constantly, and it's hard for me to relax in between.
But it's helped me, specifically short putts, I go through batches of getting nervous over short putts. So when I kind of space out and say, oh, it's my turn to hit a three-footer, I haven't thought about it for five minutes and what might go wrong, so he's helped in those ways. I've only seen him once. Hopefully he has other tricks up his sleeve.

Q. You got out of your own way?
BOB HEINTZ: I did a good job of relaxing between shots. I like Tom Johnson quite a bit. I don't know Jaco Van Zyl as much, but it was a very easy-going group. And my caddie, Jeff, just doesn't allow me to be serious for very long. He's kind of a cut-up.

Q. (No microphone).
BOB HEINTZ: I'll have to edit it. I'm trying to come up with the clean stuff. We do a lot of looking at scenery, houses and flora and fauna and people. We love looking at people, women, men, anything. We just observe. You always feel like people are looking at you, but we look back, too. Anything.
He stopped in the middle of the fairway on 2 in the practice round the other day and we looked down to the left. He said, "Have you ever looked down, how beautiful these three or fours holes are down here around the lake?"
I said, "No, I've always been looking this way. I've always been looking this way." So he's good at stopping and turning things around. I hate to say it, but he also will fire off a belch if he needs me to laugh or anything. He's good that way.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Let's go through your birdies and bogeys. You started on 10 today, and birdied 11.
BOB HEINTZ: 10, I made a really good scraping par. I hit it right and it was nice to make a 10- or 12-footer to get the day off without making a bogey.
Then I started hitting the short irons real well.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Birdie on eleven.
BOB HEINTZ: How detailed should I be?
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Club to the green and the distance to the hole.
BOB HEINTZ: 149 to the hole playing downhill, hit a solid 9-iron and it just planted itself in the green, five, six feet right of the hole, easy putt.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Club to the green on 12?
BOB HEINTZ: Pitching wedge from 120.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: To about?
BOB HEINTZ: Three feet from the hole.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Club to the hole on 15?
BOB HEINTZ: I drove the green. We were watching the guys in front, Jerry Kelly and Lee Jansen and O'Hern, and it just seemed like the ball just shot down back and forth on that little mound on the front right. And I just got up and plowed a driver straight at the green. It hit into the upslope, bounced right on the shelf and I had a 15, 17-foot putt. It just barely missed on the right. It slid off to the right.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: You talked about the double bogey on 17 already, and then birdied the first three holes. No. 1?
BOB HEINTZ: No. 1 was a 9-iron from 138. It's a little uphill so it's a good solid iron for me.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: How far?
BOB HEINTZ: That was about 12 feet long and left with a little bit of left to the right.
2, 63 yards, I hit a driver pretty aggressive, and lob-wedge over the edge of the bunker and it spun down to six or seven feet in front of the hole.
3, pulled a driver in the left rough. I had 152, really good lie. It was sitting up and I hoisted an 8-iron and it bounced 20 feet short and rolled up to two and a half feet from the hole. I couldn't see the flag or anything, I just hit it at a tree and it just found it's way to the hole.
JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Then you finished with that birdie on 9.
BOB HEINTZ: I had a very nice 3-wood. Jeff and I were scrambling and looking for a sprinkler head. He finally said it's low 100s, just hit a full sand wedge. It just went in there and landed three feet short and stopped two feet short and right of the hole. That was one of those where I had to not think about my two-footer until it was my turn and then I just popped it in.

Q. (Inaudible). How do you feel now compared to back then?
BOB HEINTZ: I just feel like I've had an opportunity. I've certainly cleaned up a lot of parts of my game, but I've earned the opportunity several times now to play on this Tour. And there are guys on that Tour who could do fine out here if they could earn the opportunity, if they could get through Q-School, but I also realize this is the first round of a four-round event, so I'm not treating this like it's Sunday and I have a trophy between us, but it's a good start anyway.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297