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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 7, 2008Anthony KimPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA DOUG MILNE: We welcome Anthony Kim to THE PLAYERS Championship. Congratulations again on a more than convincing victory last week at the Wachovia Championship. On the way in, you mentioned you felt like you had aged five years since then. Elaborate for a couple comments on how you're feeling a couple days removed. ANTHONY KIM: I don't think I have ever felt so tired after a golf tournament, but it's the right kind of tired, not because I missed the cut and I've been angry for the last two days. But I've been trying to soak this all in, and it's been a wonderful experience so far. Q. Obviously you've had an inordinate amount of requests and phone calls and things like that. How do you feel coming into the week here? ANTHONY KIM: I'm a little tired, but I'm excited to be here. This is THE PLAYERS Championship and everyone looks forward to this golf tournament. Hopefully I'll keep playing well. Q. You play a lot of practice rounds with Todd and TA. How important is it for you to play with the older guys and learn from them, and what do you guys talk about on the golf course other than just -- ANTHONY KIM: Well, from a guy like Todd, I've been friends with him -- I met him right after he won the British Open, and every chance I've gotten I've picked his brain a little bit. He's taught me so much. If there's something that he sees in my golf swing even, it's not so much technical as it is keep your rhythm smooth, and on this hole, the grain usually goes the other way even though it looks a certain way. You know, I learn something from all these guys, and Todd is obviously one of my closest friends out here. He actually bought me a nice little bottle of Cristal after I got done, so that was really nice. Q. Did you drink it? ANTHONY KIM: Not yet. Q. What was the reaction when you first walked on the range here from guys that hadn't seen you since the victory? What sort of response did you get? ANTHONY KIM: It was unbelievable, and really it started when I was unpacking my stuff in the locker room. I was actually talking to Doug Ferguson. I think it took me about an hour to unpack my bag because people were congratulating me, and the reception was so warm and everybody felt like they were happy for me and knew I had worked hard to get here. So it feels wonderful. Q. What would the reaction have been like if you would have won two years ago? Do you think it would have been different? ANTHONY KIM: I think my bag would have been packed quickly. I don't know if it would have been the same way, but I took a couple licks last year, and I realized the mistakes I made. I definitely don't want to discount that, but at the same time, that's in the past, and what I'm looking forward to doing is becoming a better golfer and a better professional out here. Q. There's sort of a trend among players in their 20s. There's only four guys on the TOUR right now with no more than two wins. Nobody has won more than two. I wonder if you had any thoughts about why that is. Is the money so great that guys get a little complacent maybe and don't burn to win as much? ANTHONY KIM: I think a lot of people think that way, and I don't really know. This is only my second year out here, and I don't feel like I can be a good judge on that because these are my peers, and we're all fighting so hard to win. But when Tiger is around, it's pretty hard to win golf tournaments because he doesn't make that many mistakes. We're all trying our best, and unfortunately we haven't won as much as I think we'd like. But it takes more than good golf to win out here. Fortunately last week I got some good breaks, and that's what you need, and hopefully the younger guys can keep getting some good breaks. Q. Do the young guys -- you know, the O'Hairs, the DJs, the J.B. Holmeses, do they burn to win, or is it easy to settle for 10th place and not take chances? ANTHONY KIM: It wouldn't be right for me to speak on their behalf. I'm sure they're trying their best to win the golf tournament every week, as am I, and I think that's what all the juniors have grown up thinking is winning is what you try to do every week. It's not about finishing in the Top 5 or Top 10. I think it would be easy to look at a Top 5 finish and say, wow, I made a lot of money. But really, after getting a taste of victory, there's nothing sweeter. Q. Besides the bottle of Cristal, is there any message or any one thing that somebody said to you that really stood out? ANTHONY KIM: I mean, I've obviously gotten to be pretty good friends with Mark O'Meara, and he told me after he met me that he thought it was going to happen this year, and hopefully I can win another golf tournament or a couple more. But to hear it from guys who told me that I could do it when I was on -- I wouldn't say a bad path, but I wasn't playing my best, and I wasn't thinking clearly. And to hear the congratulatory notes and talk to those guys after I'm done has been really special because they believed in me all along. Q. You're one of those guys, and from our standpoint and from the viewers' standpoint, they loved seeing your emotion, both the slamming the clubs and the smiles. Is it something you're trying to work on, to keep it a little more inside, or is that just you and you're going to show those emotions no matter what all the way through your career? ANTHONY KIM: I'm trying to be a little less emotional because it takes a toll on your body and on your mind. It really -- I realized when I was getting too down on myself, when it came down to the third round, I was so tired after just whining about every bad break and bad swing I made the first two days, and I had to play the weekend, I was so burned out. So through some veteran advice I've realized I'm going to try to do my best to stay positive, even if a bad round comes, because it's bound to come. I'm hoping it doesn't come soon, but it's going to come, and I have to just keep fighting through and be positive, and the good breaks will come after that. Q. If somebody had watched you on Friday, they would have thought you would have shot 75 or 76 and you shot 70. ANTHONY KIM: Right. I'm definitely working on staying more composed out there and being more of a professional and not let my emotions show quite as much, and that way I think if I'm on a more even keel I'll be able to win more golf tournaments. Q. The one thing your win did was move you toward the top of the Ryder Cup points now. I wonder if that's on your radar screen yet at all, and if you have your own theory on why the Europeans have been so successful lately and whether new blood like yourself and some of the other 20-somethings that are coming, like Boo, like Johnson Wagner who won a couple weeks ago, can boost the Americans? ANTHONY KIM: Well, the Ryder Cup has been on my radar ever since I learned about the Ryder Cup. I may have been six, seven years old and watching the Ryder Cup. That would be such a tremendous honor. I played on the U.S. world team as a junior and played on the Walker Cup team in amateur golf, and the next step is the Ryder Cup and The Presidents Cup. It's been a dream of mine for a long time, as was winning a golf tournament. So I'm looking forward to this opportunity. I definitely know where I am in the standings. I'd love to play for Captain Azinger. There would be no greater feeling than representing my country. Q. Do you feel that the young blood like yourself and some of the other 20-somethings could really energize the team? ANTHONY KIM: I'm not quite sure, because this pro team golf is a little bit different than amateur team golf. I'm sure Captain Azinger will make the right decision. Q. I talked to a couple of the older players and asked them if there was anything in common they felt like you and some of the other guys in your age group had, and the one thing I kept hearing was, "They have no fear." What does having fear on the golf course mean to you? ANTHONY KIM: Well, I've heard some of the guys have said that I have no fear, and that's not completely true (laughing). You see out of bounds on your left the whole way and water down the right-hand side, you see some of it. To me it just means that you're not playing for second place; you're trying to do whatever you can to win the golf tournament. Personally I may be a little bit too aggressive, and I may have been a little bit too aggressive there at Wachovia and not looked back, but hindsight is always 20/20, and pulling out driver on a couple of those holes maybe weren't the right play. But you know, I think when they talk about no fear, it's just that we're going to do whatever we can to win the golf tournament and fire at as many pins as we need to. Q. When you're standing on the 17th tee out here, is there a little bit of -- not necessarily fear, but a little bit of apprehension for you? ANTHONY KIM: Well, I'm going to take a little bit more time than I did last year, I'll tell you that much. You have to make sure -- even if a ball goes in the water, you have to make sure you did everything you could to hit the right club and make the right swing at it, and that's what I've learned from last year is don't just rush into it because it's a scary shot and you're trying to make birdie and get out of there as quickly as possible. Take your time and relax, and that's when I play my best golf. Q. When Tiger won his first Masters, you would have been probably about 11. I just wonder if you remember that or if there was any inspiration for you at all? ANTHONY KIM: Absolutely. I get chills just thinking about it, because when I was -- I think I may have been 10 or 11, but I remember really in my mind putting my face on his body when he pumped his fist in there, in the red, long-sleeved Nike shirt. That's been a dream of mine, as well as winning a PGA TOUR event. But that inspired me so much and what he's done. I was explaining to a couple people earlier today that I've watched Tiger's triple more than I've watched any other thing, any other video or DVD, and that's when he won the three U.S. Amateurs. And that to me inspired me and helped me get where I am and motivated me to be a winner. He's won at every level, and that's what I want to do, as well. Q. The golf media has been looking for young stars to come up and challenge Tiger now for the last seven or eight years, and there's been little blips here and there from guys, but how much you yearn to -- how much does that drive you to be able to challenge a guy like Tiger, or is that maybe something you will think about more when you truly get close? ANTHONY KIM: Well, I'm a good ways back right now, and you're right; when I get closer, I'm sure that will be more on my mind. I'm trying to do whatever I can to get better and get close. So I'm trying to listen to guys like Todd who have won the British and guys like David Toms or Jim Furyk and just watching them and trying to pick things up. And when I get close, then I think that will be on my radar. But right now he's so far ahead of us and we're just -- I can speak personally, but I'm just trying to do the best I can to become the best player I can become. Q. When your parents moved from LA County out to the desert, I guess you were in high school at that point, they kind of stayed behind during the week and let you run wild in the house, I guess, during the week. Do you think that in a way maybe helped you grow up faster, or did that have positives and negatives? Did you become more or less disciplined? You can look at it both ways. ANTHONY KIM: I think it ended up being a positive, and what I felt was more of a responsibility to myself and my parents to work hard and not disappoint them and to keep doing what I was brought there to do, and that was practice hard and give it my best shot to become a professional golfer and play on the PGA TOUR one day. It was hard for me to be there while they were working in LA and just stay solely focused on golf. But at the same time, when I see that all they're doing is working for me to have an opportunity to play golf and live my dream inspired me to work harder, and I think ultimately that's what brought me onto the PGA TOUR. Q. What did you do for meals and such? What were you, like 15 or something like that when you first moved out? ANTHONY KIM: My mom would come over and cook like two weeks' worth of meals and throw it in the freezer. I loved the microwave, and I still love the microwave. Or my friend -- my best friend right now, I'd go over to his house almost every day and eat over there. So there's been quite a few people that helped make that transition easier. But at the same time, I can't discount what my parents did for me. Q. Sorry if you've been asked this, but your caddie, Calc's caddie, Eric, could you talk about how that all came together? That was just a trial run there for a few weeks? ANTHONY KIM: It's still a trial run. This is the last week of the trial, and I know it sounds crazy that he's still on trial, but I made the decision to hire somebody too quickly without knowing their background, knowing how they interact when I'm playing great, when I'm not playing great, because it's easy to get down on somebody when they're missing cuts. Last year Eric and I developed a relationship off the golf course, and we went out to dinner a couple times and ended up actually rooming together a couple times. He's been nothing but a great guy to me before we started working together. And Calc had a couple friends come in to caddie, so I said, why don't you hop on the bag for a couple weeks. He talked to Calc about it, and here we are. I think he has a pretty good shot at getting the bag. Q. I know you say you're drained after last week, what does your schedule look like for the next little bit? ANTHONY KIM: It's changed because I want to do what the best players in the world are doing. I'm trying to emulate what they're doing, and there's a reason they're on top. I'd like to base my schedule around the major championships and take a couple more weeks off to get ready, because after playing in the U.S. Open last year, I realized how draining that tournament is. When you miss a fairway by a yard and you're chipping out sideways, that's no fun. So I'm going to plan my schedule around the majors, the British Open, the U.S. Open and the PGA. So we'll see how things change. Q. Another sort of quasi-Ryder Cup question, what was your experience like on the Walker Cup team, and how did that dynamic of that team differ from like the team concept in college? ANTHONY KIM: Well, on the screen that comes up out here, that scoreboard on the Mitsubishi screen, my favorite thing or my best moment in golf is winning the Walker Cup. Growing up playing team sports, it was so nice to share that same goal with other people. For us to be able to win that was very special for me. The difference between college and that tournament was that you have so much time to screw around when you're in college and you have to depend on your guys to win, and some of them don't want to win as bad as others. And that's not their goal. They're there to have a good time and golf is just another thing they do. Well, for me it was to be on the PGA TOUR and to be a winner on the TOUR. So when all ten guys like on the Walker Cup have the same goal of winning and wanting to beat the other team very badly, it makes for a special team, and when everybody shares the same goal, it's easy to work together. Q. Who did you get close to on that team, anybody in particular? ANTHONY KIM: Brian Harman was my teammate for a couple -- I still text with him, and Matt Every and I still talk. I talk to pretty much all the guys except a couple that I've lost touch with. You know, they'll forever be my friends because of that experience that we had together. A couple of those guys are on TOUR right now. We still talk about the Walker Cup even now. Q. I know you and Tiger had kind of a fun interaction about a belt buckle. Now that you've won, do you think Nike is going to make the buckle for you? ANTHONY KIM: I think I have to win a couple more times before they start doing anything like that, but this is definitely a good start. DOUG MILNE: Anthony, as always, we appreciate your time, and best of luck this week. End of FastScripts |
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