	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

WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

February 22, 2008

Woody Austin

TUCSON, ARIZONA

CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome Woody Austin here to the media center here at the World Golf Championships Accenture Match Play. Advancing to the quarterfinals, it must be exciting.
WOODY AUSTIN: Yes, very exciting. Just trying to advance. Just trying to go to the next day and see where it leads.
CHRIS REIMER: You took down Boo 3 and 2. Was it difficult playing against him?
WOODY AUSTIN: Yeah, it's like I explained. It's tough playing a friend, but it's also good in a way because if it would have been reversed or whatever, if you lose, it's just like anything, you want to lose to someone you enjoy playing with, you want to lose to someone you admire -- just have fun. You certainly don't want to lose to someone that you don't.
It was a lot of fun playing, but it's also tough because you're good friends and you're trying to encourage, just like he wasn't putting well at the beginning and you're trying to -- you like feel bad for him, but yet you're still trying to win, so it's kind of a tough deal.
CHRIS REIMER: Talk about the match itself.
WOODY AUSTIN: Well, fortunately for me, I was very fortunate today. He gave me a couple early with a couple short misses on 1 and 4. And I made a great putt on 3 for par. The first four holes were pretty crucial.
And then I played okay. I didn't play that bad. I hit a lot of good shots and made some birdies. But unfortunately he wasn't putting well and he was giving me those holes and I got up.
Then we got through the turn and I had my chance to really put him in a headlock, and I just never could. He three-putted 10 and I three-putted right on top of him. And then I missed a short one on 11 and he three-putted 12 to give it back. And then I three-putted 14 to give it back. So every chance I had to really put him in a headlock or whatever, I couldn't. And every chance he had to really get back in the match, he couldn't. So it was really kind of a weird match.

Q. You said yesterday it wasn't going to be quiet out there. Before things got the way they did on the golf course, were you talking back and forth in a good-natured way?
WOODY AUSTIN: Oh, absolutely. I asked him what he did for his two weeks off and he said he went home and he killed him some does. I believe he said he shot six. He talked about his property. He said him and his father-in-law and brother-in-laws and whatever have 2,000 acres near his house and they go out there. So he talked about that.
We talked about our kids. I asked him what his schedule was going to be for Florida. He's going to play them all. It's really good, lighthearted stuff with him. It's very easy to talk to him. Even though, like I said, you feel bad when -- you want to win when you play good. You don't want to win when somebody plays bad, especially if it's a friend. So you feel bad that way, but again, like I said, the idea is I still have a job to do and you want to advance and I was fortunate enough to be the one to advance.

Q. Did you get the feeling that he picked up on the concept of conceding putts?
WOODY AUSTIN: No, he didn't have any problems today.

Q. Did you have to explain the concept for him?
WOODY AUSTIN: No, didn't have to explain it to him. I talked to him at breakfast when it was in the paper. He said, I already read it. I said, well, I just want to see what they said. We had breakfast together, so I was kind of reading it to him.

Q. How much are you noticing how much more people are noticing you, and if they are, how fun is that for you at this point in your career?
WOODY AUSTIN: I think it's -- well, I think to be noticed is good for someone in my position. It just means I am doing something right. It means I am hopefully getting on TV for the right things and what have you. But I don't really -- I really don't feel like I'm more known or whatever. I think the true golf fan or the average golf fan knows, you know, but I don't think I've gotten any extra exposure out there from anything other than the person that really does watch golf.
The only thing, like I said yesterday, is I get heckled more. I even had my scorer was talking about it today. It was like you just -- and even my referee. My referee was like, you just can't away from it, can you? You cannot get away from The Presidents Cup thing. I was called "Aqua Man" and told to stay out of the water so many times.

Q. They just showed it ten minutes ago. They showed that commercial for the TOUR and FedEx, so you're never going to --
WOODY AUSTIN: No, that's what I said. So as far as being more recognized or whatever, there might be a few that see it, but it's mostly going to just be the true golf fan. I'm not going to venture -- I can't see myself venturing out to where someone that doesn't play golf says, oh, I know who you are.

Q. Are you still enjoying the "Aqua Man" thing, or is it getting a little old?
WOODY AUSTIN: I enjoy parts of it. Like I said, I don't mind -- trying to explain to Tim the other day, if it was original, you know, if somebody could throw a spin on it here and there, that's fine. But it's like there's one hole with water on this golf course, one. To be told, "Stay away from the water" for four and a half hours, when there's no water (laughter), like I said, that's where it gets -- and the one that still gets me is "Where are your goggles?" Like a golfer has goggles in his golf bag every day. That one kind of throws me for a loop, too.

Q. You probably figured this out, Woody, that the average sports fan is not exactly a Harvard graduate.
WOODY AUSTIN: It's fun. I don't have a problem with it.

Q. You've been asked a lot the last couple of years, especially last year as you were having success, about how hard you've been on yourself at times. Has that gotten any better? Have you found a way to not be so hard on yourself?
WOODY AUSTIN: I think as I've gotten older I've got a better way of dealing with myself or dealing with my -- what I consider inadequacies. I still feel I have not accomplished near what I should have or planned to accomplish. So from that standpoint I still have a long way to go. If I wasn't so hard on myself and didn't push myself I would never have made it.
I didn't have the easiest road from college to here. I got set back quite a few times. If I didn't have that dogged determination and the -- if I didn't push myself knowing that I was good enough to be here, I certainly wouldn't have been here.
And from that standpoint I also know that I'm not the kind of person that wants to just be satisfied with being here. I'm in my 14th year; that's all well and good, that's great, showing some longevity, but I don't want to be that guy that just was here. That's not what I'm here for. If you want to sit on those laurels, if you want to sit on that and just be a guy that says, yeah, I made a good living, I did this and I was out there for a long time, so be it. I know deep down that there's a talent in there that I haven't shown that can actually do some pretty special things. And I want that to come out someday.
And I'm still pushing myself as well as I can to get it to come out. And it shows its flashes here and there. But to be really serious or be considered or taken seriously you have to do it on a regular basis. So that's what I'm striving for.

Q. Have you ever had an instance, though, where it's hurt you and you've had to overcome that maybe?
WOODY AUSTIN: I think that's relative to each other's personalities. Like I said, all those years -- you can look at it in different endeavors, different sports; everybody used to say John McEnroe used to get way out of shape or whatever, but it seemed to make him play better. I'm sorry to say it, but our best player in the world gets darned upset when he's winning by 12. Seems to do him okay. So like I said, it's your personality, it's your physical makeup and that's -- you've got to deal with it the best you can.

Q. Along those lines, talk about wanting to be successful and wanting to take it to the next level and also not to have just been here. Last year was one of those years where you just weren't there; you did more than that.
WOODY AUSTIN: Right. But the problem with last year as far as like what I said -- last year was great for four months; the end of the year was great. But the first five months or six months weren't good at all. So, like I said, for myself, to be successful, when I keep -- when everybody keeps saying, you had such an awesome year last year. I wanted to say, yeah, the results -- but it wasn't an awesome year, because four months is not a year. Five tournaments or seven tournaments out of 20 -- I think I played 28, is not a year.
Obviously I'm not going to be Tiger. I'm not going to be that -- but I want a year to be a year. I want it to start and end as consistently as I possibly can. And until I do that, then I'm not going to feel as though I've accomplished what I'm trying to accomplish.
Is that too hard on myself? I don't know. But I know that to be successful and to do what I want to do, I've got to do it from the getgo to the end and then I'll tell you it was a good year.

Q. Not to belabor your putting, but yet you go back to The Presidents Cup and you made the three putts you had to to beat Sabbatini, and yesterday up against Scott and the pressure was turned up, you made the putts you had to make. Do you feel like you're a better putter when the heat is on?
WOODY AUSTIN: It seems to show up in match play. Brent brought that up when we were on the putting green yesterday. "For somebody that doesn't putt very well, it seems you make some pretty crucial ones." And that's true. I've always said when I putt well -- I've never come in after shooting 60 or something and said I putted bad, or this, that and the other.
Yesterday was the tale of two rounds, though. I three-putted three times in the first eight holes to get in that situation. So was it a great putting day? No. But did I make the ones I had to make? Absolutely. So from that standpoint there was the positive out of the day in that when my back was up against the wall on 17, I made that putt on 17, I made that putt on 18 and then I wiggled the one in on 1. So when I had to, I made them.
But if you want to be -- and today, I mean I didn't -- fortunately for me, Boo didn't put any heat on me. I couldn't make one to put him away. Could that be because I was up the whole time? I don't know. Like I said, there's the quandary that I get into. So I've got to figure out how to putt that well when I'm ahead.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297