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BOB HOPE CHRYSLER CLASSICJanuary 15, 2008Charley HoffmanLA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA JOHN BUSH: We'll get started. We would like to welcome our defending champion, Charley Hoffman, back to the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Charlie, thanks for coming by and spending a few minutes with us. First of all, happy new year and we'll look back at last year first of all. Obviously that Sunday was quite a finish. Some rough weather, and you battled it out and defeated John Rollins in the playoff. But if we can get you to recollect on that win. CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Yeah, last year was the first tournament of the year, this year it's the second. But I just came in with not many expectations into the beginning of the week, just trying to get four rounds underneath my belt going down to San Diego where I grew up. And then it happened to be I guess the, expectation-wise, it was just trying to play one shot at a time and it worked. I ended up having a chance coming down the stretch. Bad weather with gusts up to 35 miles an hour as everybody knows and it was just tough. And I guess I withstood the wind. I don't think I beat it, the wind won that day. But I was able to battle out and beat John in the playoff. JOHN BUSH: We'll get you to look ahead to this week's tournament. Obviously us a try to successfully defend. Just talk about your game. CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Yeah, it feels good. I played already over in Hawaii, didn't play as good as I wanted to. But I went back to Las Vegas and honed a few things I thought I was doing wrong and ready to get out here to play. We got a new golf course, SilverRock, on the rotation, and just trying to play one shot at a time and have a chance to win coming down Sunday at the The Classic Club. JOHN BUSH: We'll take questions. Q. As defending champion do you like the fact that there are no players in the Top-20 in the World Rankings here and only three of the Top-30? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Well, no, to answer that question you always want to try to beat the best in the world every time you play. It's probably going to be easier to win without those guys there, but every time you play you want to try to beat the best in the world and it's unfortunate that no one's here in the Top-20 in the world, but obviously there's a tournament to win and a check to pick up and I'll give it my all. Q. Last time you saw this golf course it was a little windier than it is today. You were out there playing it today? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Yeah, I played this morning. Q. Did you notice any of the changes they made here and have you seen SilverRock yet? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: I have been around SilverRock. I played it briskly Sunday before the Charger game. I had to go and watch that. So I wasn't a long practice round. But yes, I've seen that golf course. And The Classic Club, there are some changes, I think that definitely for the better. They widened a few of the driving areas where they needed to be widened, opened up a couple greens, in case the wind does blow again. And I think the course looks great. Just hopefully the wind no one wants to play anywhere when it's blowing that hard, more or less The Classic Club, where it's pretty exposed. Q. What were your impressions of SilverRock? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: My impressions of SilverRock? I think it's going to be pretty challenging also. I think its a great golf course. I think it's going to have a lot to do with the course set up. I think that it stretches to almost 7,600 yards just under. Which is very long. And if they want to they could stick some tough pins. So I think it's up to the rules committee to see how hard they do set that golf course up. They can make it really fair, which I think that they're going to do, given that we're playing with amateurs. I think the scoring on the golf courses is going to be generous, but I think it's going to be the hardest of the four courses. Q. Thinking back to last year, final round, do you recall any specific time grit in your mouth or your eye, blowing off the ball, any specific thing stand out in your mind? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: The specific thing was that the chance on 18. I really I wouldn't say I wasn't in the golf tournament all day, but I never led the golf tournament until I made the eagle on 18. And I think that the 8-iron I hit in there on 18th par-5, and to about 12 feet and sunk that putt, I knew I had a chance. I knew I wasn't locked up if one of those guys behind me made an eagle, John or Justin Rose. So to the putt on 18 was definitely the shot I remember the most. Q. Going back to the Chargers, a subject I'm sure you like to talk about these days, have you gotten to know any of the players over the last year and what's sort of your take on their run and how much have you paid attention? Did you go to any games this year? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: I went to I think three games. I did pay attention. I don't know any of the players personally. I'm a big fan. Every year we have a bus trip we go on to one of the games and I went to a couple others. And obviously it was a little disappointing the Chargers at the beginning of the year, their start, but I think that they, Norv and LaDanian and Phillip Rivers started to get on the same page, obviously, coming down the stretch and obviously it had a great run coming in November and December. Q. How does it, how is your year different when you start the year off with a victory going into every other tournament and do you now fully go into every tournament after that did you go in thinking I can win this and really believe it? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Well that's the approach I always had. I just didn't happen to succeed and win. I had a bunch of chances my rookie year to win and didn't close the door and was fortunate enough to come out my second year and win the first one I played in. And then -- I tell a lot of people my whole schedule changed after that. I got into -- at the beginning of the year I'm just trying to keep my card to finish in the top 125 to have a place to play the next year. And then all of a sudden I win and I have a chance to play in the Masters, talk about Presidents Cups teams and you talk about or you get into the World Golf Championships, you get into the majors, and so it's a whole different schedule that I had to set. And I don't know if I did the best job of doing that. I learned from that and hopefully I can go on to better things, and you always learn from your mistakes, and hopefully he have a good year this year. Q. What would you do schedule wise differently this year? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: I played a little bit too much in Florida. And then I think it sort of affected the way I played after that. So I'm going to take it a little easier in Florida this year and get after it in the middle of the summer a little better. Q. Last year you played on the same course with the celebrities, but not with the celebrities. This year you got celebrities I think all four days. Is that something you're looking forward to? Some players have a little bit of a problem with it, some players seem to embrace it. CHARLEY HOFFMAN: I can't have a problem with it, I haven't done it. So hopefully I don't. I got to know George pretty well over the last year. Obviously he's a golf enthusiast, he knows the game and I don't think there's going to be any problem there. The other couple groups I don't know the guys, but the guys playing in this week understand that it's an actual golf tournament, but we still want to entertain the fans and the crowd and that's what they come out to see so all the stars and that and hopefully watch some good golf as they go. And I don't think it's going to be a problem. I'm pretty easygoing and I'm not easily distracted by that. Q. Anybody out there that you might want to get an autograph from? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Not really. Most of the guys you see a lot during playing the pro-am and stuff I think that it's going to be fun to play with Samuel L. Jackson. I think he's a great actor and a great golfer and I think that I'm going to enjoy playing with him tomorrow with George Lopez and like. Q. Two questions: The MDF rule that I personally just first heard about this week and I still don't fully know how it works, but what's your reaction to that? I think it affected people just last weekend and I think John Daly was a little hacked off about the whole thing. But is there a feeling among the players about it or have you talked about it? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: We have talked about it. First of all, I want to know how they get or how many words there are in MDF. I didn't even know it, until it came up on the computer last week I didn't know what it was. I understood the whole cut rule, but I didn't even know what MDF stood for. But the consensus I see, I think that the logic behind it is pretty good. Over the past three years too many guys are making cuts and have to play threesomes and we play five hour rounds on the weekends and it's not fun for anybody. But I think the problem is what happens the week that let's say, granted, Tiger doesn't do it, Tiger finishes in that bracket, Phil finishes in that bracket, a star player finishes in that bracket and all of a sudden he makes the cut and can't play. I don't think the sponsors are going to be real happy about that. I don't think they would really care if I didn't play on the weekend, but it's all about our main stars and our main players and I think that sooner or later it's going to be affected by that which is going to be disappointing. But that's the rule they made. Q. Second question, more fun, getting back to the Chargers, come Sunday, obviously game tips off at or kicks off at noon, somewhere around the finish of the tournament LaDanian might be first and goal and have a play. Are you going to be able to keep track or is that something you even want to do while you're playing or is it a nice distraction? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Hopefully I'm playing, I'm in contention, I'm not really worrying about it. That's the main thing for me, obviously. If I'm not playing that well I'm going to be asking around to see how it's going. And a lot of the guys, a lot of the galleries sneak the phones in and sneak the PDA's in and you can usually get some scores updates and such and hopefully they're not beating us too bad going into the fourth quarter and we have a chance to win and I have a chance to win. Q. How does it feel coming back as the defending champion having to deal with this stuff, talk to us. Whatever other else you're going through, what's it like? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: It's great. Any time you get to talk to the media it means you have to be doing something all right. So it's nice to come back to defend. Obviously it's the first tournament I've ever defended and obviously I have great vibes about the golf course. It fits my game pretty well. And I'm ready to go out and get the tournament started tomorrow. Q. Going back to the glory days at UNLV you did win a national title there, it was the first national title for the school you last year you got your first victory on the TOUR. Which one was more exciting? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: They're definitely two different. One's a team championship and one's an individual championship. So team-wise, I never really played on any or team golf. So that was unbelievable at the time. Definitely that was the best experience I've ever had. And winning a golf tournament individually last year here was the best experience individually I ever had. And so they both have their different place on the mantle. But both mean a lot to me. Q. As the defending champion, out of this field for this year, who do you see as giving you the biggest run? Who is your biggest threats? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: I haven't totally looked at the field to tell you the truth. I obviously know that Chad Campbell is coming off a pretty good showing last week in Sony. He won here two years ago, UNLV teammate obviously one of the best players in the field. You got -- I think Mike Weir's playing? Is he still in the field? Yes. Okay. I mean, he is about playing as good as anybody right now. I think that anybody has a chance to win. First of all because you have four rounds to put together before there's a cut. So everybody has a chance, you're never really out of it. Sometimes you can get off to a bad start and be out of the tournament. But you got four rounds to claw yourself back in the tournament and shoot-out in the final round. So I think it's up in the air for anybody to win. Q. Can you talk about you mentioned earlier I don't think sponsors are going to care if I don't play over the weekend, is everything the same for you? You're a PGA TOUR winner, but has everything been the same, are the galleries the same, do you feel any different than before you won your tournament? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: I personally don't feel any different. Obviously people recognize who I am now on the PGA TOUR which is mostly probably because of the hair than the golf. But no, it's good. I can get asked to do inside the PGA TOUR, do some media stuff, do a couple other outings. So everything's good, you just got to, out here it's a lot, has to do with time management and you just got to prepare for that and set aside time to do all that stuff and make sure you're still practicing and playing golf and that's what got you there and is playing golf and practicing, so you got to still make sure you got time to do that. Q. Looking ahead to Torrey Pines, how fun is that to go back and be able to play there with -- basically you had an opportunity to play there many times and grew up in San Diego, is that a nice thing to look forward to? CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Yeah, that is my Major for the year. Obviously there's the Major, but that's my Major. Growing up there, watching the tournament, playing for my first start when I was 16 as an amateur, there's definitely I learned so much as an amateur that I thank the Century Club every year and Tom Wilson to have the opportunity to play there as an amateur. I learned so much playing there that helped me succeed in professional golf that I would never ever gain if I didn't do that and I'm going to try my hardest. I wouldn't say that I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I definitely give it my all that week and hopefully I can give the fans of San Diego something to cheer about in the off week that if we're not going to the Super Bowl. JOHN BUSH: Charlie, thank you and play well this week. CHARLEY HOFFMAN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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