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THE HONDA CLASSICFebruary 27, 2008Woody AustinPALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Woody Austin to the Honda Classic media center. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes. 2007, obviously a banner year for you, the win at Memphis, Presidents Cup, and the finish at the PGA. Just a couple thoughts on assessing the state of your game as we're here in 2008. WOODY AUSTIN: So far, unfortunately typical start, not a very good start on the West Coast. We've had a pretty ugly winter in Kansas, so I haven't really had a chance to prepare and play except when I'm on the road. Game is a little rusty. I played pretty decent last week at the Match Play. A little disappointed with the exit, the way I exited. But the game is getting to the point is where I'm starting to see some signs from last year, so now it's just a matter of time and getting out there and getting in some rounds. Like I said, I just haven't gotten a chance to prepare the way I would like. I'm playing this week, and it's still, you know, if I go home next week, I don't know how much preparation I'll have for Bay Hill, so it's kind of hard. DOUG MILNE: What's the mind-set? We had talked on the way over about the weather conditions and how it's a different kind of course here. How does that affect your mind-set here as you prepare for the week? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, I understand tomorrow is supposed to be very cold, and I've got a 7:44 tee time, so that's not a good spot to be in. Obviously we didn't get in as much preparation today as I would have liked. I didn't get to see the whole golf course. I only saw the front nine. I only got to see six holes yesterday before we got yanked off the golf course yesterday. But you know, hopefully I'll get out here in a little bit once the afternoon Pro-Am tees off and get some work on the range and then hopefully I'll be at least somewhat ready tomorrow. Q. You've played a lot of Florida Swings, can you talk about how, does it seem like there's a different feel to the events now because the courses are playing tougher? WOODY AUSTIN: This is a great golf course here. I mean, this is a nice change of pace. It's nice to actually play some tough golf courses. It's nice when you actually have to play; you don't have to just hit it. So you know, this golf course held up real good last year. Obviously with the rain leading into this week and a little bit today, the golf course can play really long, which is fine as long as the long hitters get penalized for hitting off line, and that's the whole thing. The whole adage of making a golf course longer to make it tougher doesn't work if you can still hit it in the rough and still hit it out of the rough. You know, that's evidenced by the top players in the game still aren't driving it all that straight, but they are still the best in the game because they can control it out of the rough because they are hitting short irons out of the rough. So it's important that we have the rough that we had here last year so that you can -- that you're penalized. Q. Like you alluded to, in Kansas at this time of year you can't do a whole lot of work. Early in the season whether on the West Coast or here in Florida, are there specific things you try to work for? Obviously winning is always the goal and is paramount, but is it this week 'I'm going to try this' or 'next week I'm going to try this'? WOODY AUSTIN: It is important for me at the beginning of the year. I think if you look through the career, as soon as I moved to Kansas at the beginning of the year, I haven't been nearly as prepared or ready to play. It's just difficult. It's basically two things. It's one, obviously, I don't play much in the winter. And two, I'm a Florida boy anyway born and raised, so I'm not much on the California stuff. I can't stand poa annua. So I don't know how in the world those guys putt on poa annua, so you can wipe all those golf courses out on me, as well. It just makes it really tough for me at the beginning of the year. And then you throw in my first tournament of the year, usually, is Bob Hope and you've got to shoot 30-some under. Well, if you haven't played for 2 1/2 months, how are you going to shoot 30-some under? It just makes it a little difficult. But the good thing about certain tournaments, the good thing about the Bob Hope is I am guaranteed four rounds of golf. Good idea. There's no reason for me to fly all the way over to Hawaii, completely unprepared and not be able to play but two rounds. Their facilities, the driving range and whatever, it's not conducive to working on my game. But if I go to the Bob Hope, I've got all those golf course, all those ranges to work on. I can work on my game and at least get, by the end of that week, have an idea of what's going on for the next week. So, it's kind of a Catch 22. But when I get to Florida, usually I get to the warm weather and I can start to prepare and start to practice, usually this is when my game starts to kick in. And I can usually at this time start to go home and it's starting to warm up and I can start practicing, and if you look, that's what I start to play my best. So hopefully it will turn out here in the next month or so. Q. If I can follow up to that, obviously I'm not insinuating that you're diminishing the Hope, because you're not -- WOODY AUSTIN: No, not at all. Q. -- on some level do you consider this time of year when Florida starts, is this really when the year starts for you? WOODY AUSTIN: I wouldn't say this is when the year starts, because the year starts as soon as I play my first tournament. It started at Maui for me this year. But for me to say, am I ready to play, no, I'm not even close to ready to play. You know, it depends on how you look at it. You know, Tiger only plays when he's ready. He only plays at tournaments he wants and he only plays when he's ready. Well, if that was the case, I couldn't play until maybe now after really being, you know -- well, I can't take that much time off. I don't have his kind of cash. (Laughter). Q. Are you playing next week? WOODY AUSTIN: No. Q. In Tampa? WOODY AUSTIN: No. I had to break up the run so that I could get ready for Augusta. If I played next week, then I would be playing five or six in a row, and that would just wear me down before Augusta, and I want to make sure I'm ready for Augusta. I took enough abuse for not playing the British Open last year when I was exhausted, so I'm going to make sure I'm not exhausted for Augusta. Q. Hard decision? WOODY AUSTIN: Tough decision, yeah, because you know, I grew up 45 minutes from there. It was on my schedule. But the fact that I got in the Match Play and the fact that I'm in Doral, those are two tournaments I haven't been in in my entire career, so those took precedence. They are on the beginning and end of that swing, so now I can't play. Otherwise, it would have been five in a row, and I'm not going to play five in a row anymore if I don't have to. I'm going to have to here in the middle of the year because the three tournaments I won happen to be in succession with the U.S. Open. So I'm kind of stuck there. I'm not going to tell somebody that I've won a tournament. Q. Can you just reflect on last year, and what it did for you? I guess most of all, the acceptance that you seem to have earned among a lot of your peers. WOODY AUSTIN: Well, obviously it's always good. It means you're doing something right if people are telling you something good. Still I have a hard time accepting when everybody says "you had a great year," because I don't consider it a great year because it was only a four-month stretch. Four months to me isn't a year. Just like this year, the beginning of the year was terrible all the way through -- I don't think I played a good tournament until -- probably didn't play a good tournament until July last year, so I wouldn't call that a great year. But I did have that really remarkable little four-month stretch where I finished second twice, won once, Presidents Cup, so all that was great. But I want it to be a consistent year, and then I'll say it was a great year. So from that standpoint, it was good, and it's nice to know that people are paying attention to someone like myself. Like I said, I don't consider myself anybody one of the top dogs because I haven't done enough to be considered a top dog, but when you're talked about, that means you're at least doing something right. So I'm starting to do the things that I've known all along that I can do. It's just a question of doing it on a consistent basis; I haven't done that yet. Q. A lot of people didn't know Aquaman had such a sense of humor. WOODY AUSTIN: Well that's because most people have never seen me off the golf course. The people that really know me know me as that. I mean, I love to laugh and joke. I love to cut up. I love to give people as much as they want to give back. The problem is, is when I'm on the golf course, that's my job, and I haven't done my job very well in my eyes, and so therefore, I haven't been happy. So it's kind of hard to -- it's kind of hard to be happy when you don't feel as though you've gotten out of your job what you think you should have. And that's the hard part of getting -- that's the hard thing for getting people to understand, is some people say, well, you've been successful, you've been out here. I'm in my 14th year, won a few times, this, that and the other and that's all well and good, but I don't want to be known as a guy that's just hung on. I don't want to be known as somebody that's just out here. I don't want to be known as somebody, what's the term all the time -- Q. Journeyman? WOODY AUSTIN: Journeyman. And I've been called that numerous times. That's not what I'm out here for, and that's not what I want to be, and if that's what I'm known as, I'm pretty disappointed in myself because that's not what I wanted to be. I wanted to be known as one of the best players. I know I am good enough to be one of the best players. I know I haven't shown it, but I know I'm that good. It's just like if you feel do you your job well enough or you feel you should be lead anchor or you feel like you to have a Pulitzer Prize or whatever, and you haven't, why would you be happy. Q. What, if anything, do you feel started falling in place in Tucson last week? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, like I said, the golf swing was a little better. I hit a lot of good shots the first couple matches. The greens got me. The greens got really fast, something I struggle with a lot, so I struggled against Boo. Fortunately for me, Boo putted even worse than I did, but we both struggled really a lot with the pace. And it really showed up against Henrik on some putts. I really struggled with the pace. But I did start to hit it better. The problem with last week is the golf course was so easy that it really lended to hitting a lot of good -- the fairways were pretty wide, the greens were huge, so you could always hit the greens. It doesn't give you the same aspect, as, say, this week. This week with the wind and the way this golf course is, you'll know if you're hitting it good. Last week, you could almost hit it anywhere. So I hit a lot of good shots, but there was no -- there was no real fear factor or any trouble, and that's the problem that you have on the golf course like that in that it was pretty open, and it lended itself to perfect match play. It lended itself to a lot of movement, a lot of birdies and this, that and the other. But it didn't really give you a good critique of your golf game because you could pretty much hit it anywhere. This week, you can't. Q. Are you aware of the tweaks that were made to the FedExCup points this week at the end of the year, and if so, are you happy with that? WOODY AUSTIN: I didn't -- I don't know anything about the FedEx. The only thing I was aware of this week was the change in the cut policy again. Q. They are going to make the gap once the Playoffs begin smaller when they re-seed everybody, and they also are going to give more points in the Playoff events to have more volatility. It seems like that's a good move. Just curious. WOODY AUSTIN: Sure. It's just like anything. If it is a playoff, let's face it, if it's the Playoffs, then the guy that makes the Playoffs should still have as much -- just because, say, Tiger is No. 1 seed, and then the 50th seed guy -- in any other playoff format, the 50th seed guy doesn't have to beat the No. 1 seed umpteen times, which would happen in our playoff system. He would have to just do leaps and bounds better than Tiger; whereas in any other playoff system, it's just, what, they get home-field advantage or home-court advantage or whatever, but you just have to beat him, because he's supposed to beat you anyway because he's the No. 1 seed. So it should be narrowed, there's no question, if you want it to be a true playoff. Q. A bit of an odd question. Before the U.S. Open this year, some amateur is going to win a drawing for Golf Digest and they are going to put him out on the golf course Sunday with three celebrities and a bunch of TV cameras to play from the pro tees. WOODY AUSTIN: At San Diego? Q. Yeah, at Torrey. Given that you've probably seen a few amateurs faint in Pro-Ams, what do you think happens to this guy if they throw him out there with Matt Lauer, Justin Timberlake and Tom Brady with TV cameras on him on that course with a U.S. Open setup? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, obviously I think based on what his background is as far as is he a tournament player, you know, even if it's local amateur stuff or whatever, if he's got any kind of background in tournament play, I would say if you -- it would be a lot easier for him, because let's face it, Justin Timberlake isn't very good and Matt Lauer isn't vary good and Tom Brady isn't very good. So from a golf standpoint, he's got to feel pretty much even, if not a little bit better. Now obviously with the TV cameras, and those guys are celebrities, he's going to be overwhelmed. But I think if you took the same scenario and put him with Jack Nicklaus, put him with Tiger and put him with Arnold Palmer or something, then he might faint. (Laughter). Q. You've had a lot of great things happen to you last year. What was your favorite moment? WOODY AUSTIN: Again, my favorite moment was The Presidents Cup. Like I said, that's something I had looked forward to, never having to get in something like that. I said it numerous times before and I've said it since; that format suits my personality. And the fact that I finally made one of those teams, and obviously when you win, you're always going to feel even better. It was so much fun to be around those guys off the golf course, because I never get to. I never get to see Tiger out. I never get to see Phil out. I don't see those guys in their regular -- around their wives and their kids and whatever, and I finally got to see that. So I'm going to that I can that as definitely the highlight. Q. And how did it change your relationships with these guys when you come out and see them now? WOODY AUSTIN: I don't think it really changed much, because again, I don't see Tiger. It hard to change your relationship when the only time I see him is on the driving range, that's it, because I don't see him in practice rounds because I'm not a morning person. I'm not going to get up at 5:30 to play golf with the guy, because he tees it up at like 6:30. I'm not that big of wanting to play with him that bad. (Laughter). Now, Phil, I see Phil a little bit more. But still, again, they travel in such different circles, they stay in different places, so it's really hard to see them. Hasn't really changed that much other than the fact that you get to know them better, so you can maybe chide them a little bit more and talk to them a little bit more when you're on the range, you've got more things to say, like I can talk to Tiger about Sam and Elin and whatever since I've finally gotten to around them. Phil has been a practical joker around me for a lot of years. He's very happy that the Aquaman has stuck. He's got me very angry when it comes to that. He loves to chide me about that stuff. Q. Does that experience give you any extra incentive this year for The Ryder Cup? WOODY AUSTIN: Absolutely. I said that's my No. 1 goal this year. I'd rather get on that team than win a regular event. Like I said, that to me is my personality. That is me. I enjoy that atmosphere. Sure, obviously I'd love to win Augusta or something like that, but as far as winning a regular event, I've won three now, so I'd rather get on my first Ryder Cup Team than to win another and be in that element. Let's face it, we've got our butts kicked for a while, I'd like to be on the team that brings it back. Q. Do you have much of a rapport with Paul? WOODY AUSTIN: Living in Florida, him being in Florida, we would see each other quite a few times. But he just isn't out here as much as he used to be, so, you know, I'd say five, six years ago, we had a real good rapport, talked a lot, played a lot, played practiced rounds a lot. Now, again, you don't see him as much. But he's going to be a perfect captain for what we need. We need somebody who is real fiery. He's pretty fiery guy. He's already shook it up pretty good with his change in the way he's approaching things. So you know, he's at least taking a nice, aggressive approach to everything, and I think that's important. Q. Not to wear this out, but what went through your mind when you went into the water? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, obviously nothing was going through my mind while I was falling because obviously I was, you know, falling. When I got out, if you really look at it, when I got out, I was laughing because I knew how stupid I looked. I knew everybody was going to be laughing, so I figured I might as well laugh, as well. You know, it was funny, and I know it was funny, but it's just like anything, when you're the one that's embarrassed, then it's not quite as funny. (Laughter). Q. In hindsight, it may have been the greatest thing that ever happened to you as far as public awareness. WOODY AUSTIN: Well, you know, it's fine -- like I said, it's fine to that point. I wish just like anybody, because it is my -- like I said, I was there for a job so to speak. I was there to play golf, and I was there for our team to win. And it would just be nice that people would recognize that I did birdie three of the last three holes in a row to halve the match, as opposed to always just falling in the water. DOUG MILNE: Have you seen the new PSA on you, the new PGA TOUR PSA? They did a good job on that. WOODY AUSTIN: It's a nice one. The one where like Retief says he got struck by lightning and Steve Stricker talks about -- they have got me falling in the water, saying, "and he thought I made a big splash last year." Q. A lot of guys in the past have maybe verbally challenged Tiger saying that they can hang with him or beat him or whatever and it never really seems to work because he keeps winning. Is that something that guys should just let it go and be quiet, or is it maybe good for the game? WOODY AUSTIN: Why? See, that's just it. It depends on the way you listen to what somebody says. You know, I understand your job as a journalist or your job as a media guy is to make things sensational or to make them more than average so that people will pick up the paper and go, oohh, that sounds interesting or whatever. But just because his name is brought up or just because you mention his name is not calling him out. It's not challenging him. Q. Rory said he's at beatable as ever -- WOODY AUSTIN: But at the time, if you look at the way he was playing, he didn't say anything that wasn't true. But, if you take it the way you took it, that's just like I was told that I called him out at the PGA. I never said anything. All I talked about was the way my round two and his round two were perceived, never talked about him as far as what he was doing. I only talked about why I was upset with my round, and it came out as I challenged him, because I said I played better than him. I was talking about my round of golf. I wasn't talking about him. But that's, you know, just by mentioning his name and mentioning his round of golf, all of a sudden it now becomes this whirlwind. And like I said, that's the problem you have, and it makes it hard for guys to even talk about that. That's why if you ask certain questions, guys are pretty, you know, pretty hesitant to say anything, because as soon as you say something, whether you're right or not, you end up (indicating a flip). I honestly don't know what the article or what-have-you with the Ian Poulter deal, and I'm sure it was probably very innocent, if what he said is true and he just wanted to be No. 2. But for what happened after it came out, he probably went through hell for like three days, and he didn't say anything bad, but I bet he went through hell for three days. Q. Do you think it keeps golfers from wanting to speak their mind? WOODY AUSTIN: I've said all along, it's one of the big problems we've on TOUR. I've been told by people all the time: You're too hard on yourself and don't give yourself a break. That's because I'm tired of listening to the politically correct answer. We live in such a excuse-oriented society that all you have to do is make an excuse and everybody will go by it. I don't make excuses. I don't believe in it. I didn't play bad because my thumbnail hurt or that I had a cold last week and it has taken me ten days to get over my cold. Well, if that's the situation, then don't play. Don't make an excuse out of it. It seems like everybody does and it seems like that's okay. But if I come to you and tell you that I choked or that I played like a dog, oh, you can't say that, oh, you're too hard on yourself. Well, that's the truth. That's just flat-out truth. Take it that way; don't take it any other way. It's a hell of a lot better in that aspect to say it that way than to go, you know what, I woke up last night and didn't feel good and came out anyway and just wasn't myself. That, to me is the political excuse. You know, step up. I'm 44 years old. I'm a man and I can tell you how it is and you can take it any way you want. But I am never going to give you a stupid excuse for where I played bad. If I played bad, I played bad. I didn't play bad because of, you know, the outside agencies, my caddie gave me the wrong club or the volunteer was coughing while I was trying to hit it. You hear them all, so, you know, just step up and be yourself and be a man about it. DOUG MILNE: As always, Woody, we appreciate your time, thanks for chatting with us. End of FastScripts |
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