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BUICK INVITATIONALJanuary 24, 2008Troy MattesonSAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Troy, for joining us for a few minutes here in the media center at the Buick Invitational. Great start to the week, 31 on the back side, which was your first nine today. 65 for the day, and you've had a pretty good start to your season with a Top 10 out there in Hawai'i. TROY MATTESON: Yeah, things have been going pretty good. We're looking this year to get off to a hot start, and that's the trick for anybody to make your year a little easier, play this West Coast better. Just playing well here and getting off to a great start here means a lot for me because the South Course is so difficult. Most of us come in hoping to shoot 1- or 2-under on the South Course or shoot even, sometimes that's a good number, and today we were able to get away with a few more. Q. How good is 7-under on the South? TROY MATTESON: For me I probably won't top that for a while. Like I said, it's typically a golf course where most guys are just thinking if I can shoot even, 1-under, 2-under and then go to the North Course and really make up my numbers there, you know, that's kind of your tournament. Guys can shoot 8-, 9-, 10-under on the North Course and then shoot 6-under for the week. So we're looking forward to going to that North Course after playing this one. Q. What's your history here? TROY MATTESON: I think I played okay last year. I had a bad Sunday and maybe finished in the top 20, 16th, 15th, something like that. I've always liked it here because it's got a big tournament feel and all the great players come out. This is typically where they start. It's really important to play well here for a lot of us young guys and guys coming up off the Nationwide Tour. Q. Last year were you happy with the way that went, after breaking through winning, playing so well down the stretch in the fall of '06? Last year you probably didn't have quite the high highs. TROY MATTESON: I think for me I didn't really play well most of the year, and just to have a good solid year was good because sometimes when you have a great year and have a great finish it's kind of hard to go duplicate that and come back from that. I really wasn't that disappointed with last year. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted to towards the end of the year because I just wasn't playing well. I spent most of the off-season just working on my game preparing for this year. So hopefully we can make this year stick and make it a little better. Q. You said you liked the big-time atmosphere. Why is that? TROY MATTESON: I think for a lot of the younger guys that are around 100 in the World Ranking, 90 in the World Ranking, we're looking to get in the top 50, and this is a good way to do that. You come here, play with the best players in the world, and if you have a good finish you're going to jump up that World Ranking. That seems to be what everybody is gauging golf by now. That's on all of our minds. If you can get in the big fields and you can play well, you've got a chance to jump further. Q. Are you still using the heavier putter? TROY MATTESON: Yeah, I've been using the heavy putter since the middle of 2004, and I've switched between models. I've had some new models, so if it looks like I haven't been playing with the one, I've just been playing with a new model or a prototype, and they're coming up with some new products. The one I played with today was the one I started playing with in '04. It's just hard to get away from things that work. Q. Why does that work for you do you feel? TROY MATTESON: I don't know if it's just -- with putting, a lot of times it's just how it looks when you set it up. That's why when you see guys go play on the weekend they'll show up with a new putter every week. They just convince themselves that it looks better, looks like they're going to make putts. It's no different out here. Guys go through putters like you can't believe. If you really tracked how often guys switch putters, it's a lot. You see very few guys with the same putter in the bag over the years. I think I played with Faxon last year and I saw his putter and I think he told me his putter was older than I am. Other guys, you know, their putter is brand new. They might even switch putters in the middle of a tournament. For me I switch back and forth between several different types. I just try to go with what looks good. Q. Where is Calcavecchia on that list do you think? TROY MATTESON: He's got a few putters. They might not be in one piece back home, either (laughter). Q. What's your reaction, you're playing well on the tougher of the two courses and then you look up on the leaderboard and you see Tiger is already right there? TROY MATTESON: I mean, you know, I think Tiger aside, I think all guys in the beginning of the week, we're all just trying to post good scores. It's too early in the week to really be thinking about am I going to win, am I going to do this, am I going to do that. I think guys are really -- they don't really scoreboard watch in the first round. It's nice to look up there and see your name, especially for a younger guy because it means you're at least doing something right. But later in the week I think that will come into a little bit more play, thinking about can you win, do you have a chance to have a good finish. But today is just about getting as many birdies as you can. Q. Obviously you have a long way to go this week. Shooting 65 on the South, does that get you a little more excited about the Open being here? TROY MATTESON: It does, but at the same time, like I said, I played the South Course this week and didn't break par either day I played it. For the Open, you know, it's just going to be -- I think I may have missed a few fairways today. I know those will be bogeys, unless I lay it up to 150 yards or 140 yards and get it up-and-down. So it's kind of unfair to say -- it's kind of unfair to make a comparison between how is this going to stack up versus the Open. You could play the same way I did today, maybe not make many putts and shoot 2- or 3-over. That will be what's really going to be interesting about the Open, just to see what the scores are going to be out here. Q. When you looked at the conditions today, did you think soft greens, we can go at the flags, or wow, this is going to be tough because of the wind and everything and the length and all that? TROY MATTESON: Well, all week guys have been concerned with how far they're hitting it. Obviously the ball doesn't release very much in the grass here, and it doesn't roll more than maybe two or three steps. If it does you're lucky because you're picking up yardage. For us today we started on the back side and there was very little wind in the morning and got probably through 14 or 15 without any serious wind, but by the time you hit 14 you're kind of working downwind at that point. And when the wind started picking up I played 18 and I was able to get home in two today. That's kind of the part of the golf course where you can score if it is downwind. Then you go to the front side and all of a sudden you're playing right back into the wind, and the guys this morning probably hit 9-irons, 8-irons into 1 and then hit sand wedges into 2. Well, I hit 4-iron into 1, I hit 8-iron into 2, and I think I hit 4-iron into 3. Those are holes where typically you can score and they're going to play pretty short. It's just nice we could start where we did and the wind was the way it was. JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Can we go through your round? Started on 10, birdied 13. TROY MATTESON: 13, I was fortunate to drive it far enough down the fairway where you could try to knock it on the green. That's always a benefit when the greens are this soft. You're really worrying about spinning it. I saw Mike Weir hit one out of the rough and he probably spun it 30 feet. It's just amazing the way the ball is spinning. I was fortunate to get it up by the green. 14, just hit two good shots, just tried not to hit it in the brink over the green, and that's a really tough pin. Luckily we just got it going there and it didn't spin too much, had about an eight- or nine-footer and made it. 15, to me that's probably the hardest pin on the green. I got a little aggressive with it and it paid off. I hit it in there probably ten feet. That's really not a hole that I consider a birdie hole, so I kind of got away with one there. 17 is probably one of your chances you're really looking to do something, and I hit a good shot there, had about 10, 12 feet and I got one to hang in there. I thought I was going to miss that one. 18, just hit the green in two, putted up the hill and made 4 there. Bogey on 2, drove it in the bunker, not really a good spot to be. Tried to go at the pin, which looking back was not that smart, and ended up hitting it over the green, which is death there, and I couldn't get it up-and-down. Birdie on 6, probably one of those places you're really looking to get one on the South Course again. Hit a good drive, knocked it on the green, two-putted from probably 40 feet. I would think that hole is probably playing the easiest hole on that course today. 8, again, just a really tough shot. You've all seen it. It's got just a huge shelf -- a very small shelf and a very big bottom shelf, very hard to keep it up on top. Just hit a really good shot up on top and I didn't have more than about 10, 12 feet. 9 was kind of interesting because I don't hit that fairway very much, and my caddie gave me some number like 350 yards to the hole or something like that on the second shot, which is crazy. I pulled a 3-wood left, hit a ball on the path, and before you know it the ball was almost pin high at the front of the green. It was an interesting predicament. Guys were trying to get in their cars and leave the grounds. I drew a pretty decent lie, had about 50 yards over the bunker. Let's say you hit it there during the Open or you hit it there when the greens are a little firmer, it's a shot where you're going to hit it to 30 or 40 feet. Today with the wet conditions I was able to flip it over the bunker and leave about an eight- or nine-footer. I think those are things that you're going to see today out there. You're going to see a lot of guys getting balls up and down because the greens are so soft. I was just fortunate enough that it worked out to my advantage today. Q. Did Weir tell you he was sick or could you tell? TROY MATTESON: Yeah, early on he was not feeling well, and Charley was not feeling well. I thought we were going to be down to one there pretty quickly. But he was not feeling well early in the round. Mike is not the kind of guy that he's going to leave after nine holes regardless of what he is. He did the classy thing. He finished nine holes where it wasn't such a big issue. He didn't leave in the middle of nine holes. He just handed me the card and said he really didn't feel well. I knew that he didn't. Sometimes, especially this time of year, a lot of guys are sick. Flu has been going around, people have been sick for a month. I went through it two months ago, so I know how he feels. Hopefully he just gets better. Q. Did you take a peek at the back tee on 13 or have you kind of seen where they plan to put that, and what do you think? TROY MATTESON: Yeah, I think this has been a discussion between all the players that I hear playing this course, and guys are really concerned that USGA has lost the scope of what's important. And making a par-5 that's 600-whatever yards it's going to be, and you're taking a par-5 that really is pretty difficult to reach. That's really an exciting hole. Last year I was playing with Tiger in the last round and he hits 2- or 3-iron into the green, and he's hit a great drive and he's knocked it all the way on the other side of the green and he makes this great 80- or 90-foot putt across the green and it almost goes in. People want to see excitement there. People don't want to see guys drive it off the tee, barely carry the barranca, hit 3-wood, lay up, now you can't see the player, and everybody is going to hit a wedge in, and that's the way 98 percent of the guys are going to play the hole. Then the other 2 percent are going to be guys that hit a bad drive or something like that. But all you've done is taken away the ability to knock it on that green in two. Q. You know what's interesting about this is Mike Davis makes it a reachable par-5 but then they take the one away from you at 13. TROY MATTESON: Like I said, you know, the U.S. Open is the one tournament a year where it's acceptable to have super-deep rough and have guys shooting 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-over and making the cut, and I think people get it. The problem is that a lot of tournaments start falling in line with that. And what you're seeing is you're seeing golf courses change into these 7,500-, 7,600-, 7,700-yard golf courses. We had one last week that was somewhere around 7,700. The problem is we are like .001 percent of the golfers in the world and they're building golf courses for us to play. Now when you come out here and you play Torrey Pines and you pay your greens fee and you go out there, they're not going to let you play off that back tee and you don't want to, and that's really what's happened is that I think we're losing sight of what's important. A 613-yard par-5 on grass that doesn't roll doesn't make any sense at all. Q. What was your standing heading into the final round last year, and what was the experience like playing with you-know-who on a Sunday? TROY MATTESON: I was probably third, fourth, fifth, somewhere in there. I was in the next-to-last group, and we were all chasing Brandt. Brandt shot 10- or 11-under the first round, something like that, and it was just an amazing round. Everyone was just playing catch-up the whole week. You know, for me it was pretty interesting. On one side, you know, you've got Tiger and you've got Charles and then you've got me. And everybody roots for Tiger, everybody roots for Charles, nobody really cares what I do. So it makes it real easy for me to go out there and play because they're really not paying attention to what I'm doing. I played pretty well for about the front nine is what I recall. But one of the nice things is it was nice to see, be around one of those Sundays where all that excitement is happening, especially in a big tournament with big-time players. That's an experience that any player would remember out here. Any time you get paired with Tiger it's very interesting from a crowd standpoint, from a what-he-does standpoint. It's just pretty neat to see the guy shoot 65, 66 on Sunday to win. It was really nice. You know, it's just nice to be right there. Q. Did you learn something? TROY MATTESON: I sure did. Up to about hole 7 it didn't look like that round was going to be any better than 2- or 3-under, and then all of a sudden it's a 65 or whatever. It was pretty amazing round just from making some of the eagle putts that he made. I remember Charles Howell came up to me on 17. I think Tiger drove it down there. I might have been first to play. Tiger drove it down there and he's got 9-iron. I think Charles is just outside him. Charles hits a pretty good shot up there maybe 15 feet. I think at that point Charles might have been within one, maybe two, so it looked like if he did something coming in he might have been able to catch up. So Charles hits it on the green, hits a pretty good shot. Tiger hits it in there with a 9-iron and hits it to like two and a half feet. Charles just goes, "You know what, just when you think he's going to let you in, he just puts you away." It was nice to see that. Charles was playing really well. You know, Tiger just doesn't -- he does not waste an opportunity. JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Troy, appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
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