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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 8, 2008Paul GoydosPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Paul Goydos, thanks for joining us, playing in your 10th PLAYERS Championship, maybe some opening comments about a good day for you. PAUL GOYDOS: It was a good day, 17 notwithstanding. I even make the argument that that was the hole that kept my level headed. I even made bogey after hitting it in the water, and then 18, made two good swings there and then birdied 1, 2, and 3. I wouldn't say I tried to hit it in the water and try to do that in the future, but definitely making a 12- or 15-footer was a propeller. But a good day, putted well, did everything well, nice. Q. You said yesterday, I don't think anybody walks out and thinks they can play this golf course, except me. PAUL GOYDOS: First time I broke 70 in my career. Q. How did that happen? PAUL GOYDOS: I don't know. Skipping 18 was a good idea, though. You know, I like the changes. I think they suit me nicely. I like the bermuda. I like the height of the rough. I think it brings everybody into play. You have to make some decisions, as opposed to just hacking it sideways like I usually do there. Today, if I would have putted any other day like I putted today, I probably would have more rounds in the 60s, also. Just a good day. Q. I guess maybe the question is, why it took so long; was the date in March not as good for you with your schedule? PAUL GOYDOS: I've won in March. It's a hard golf course. I think it's a hard, good, fair golf course. Why I have never had any real success here, I couldn't answer. With one round, I don't know if you could say success is made. But it's a good golf course. I just never could do anything here for whatever reason. I think part of it is that I like the bermuda; I won in Hawaii. I like the bermuda, maybe the warmer weather and maybe it catches my eye a little bit. Q. What's your opinion of 17 as a golf hole? PAUL GOYDOS: I think it's tremendous. This year, it's going to be interesting. It's going to play tough. The greens were obviously real firm on Monday. They are not going to get softer as the week goes on. When I hit it, I had a bad feeling I hit it too good, which I don't have that feeling very often when I hit it too good. And I was kind of hoping it was an optical illusion that it was going so far and it went pin-high -- now if the pin was on the lower tier on the right and you hit pin-high, it's a little softer than when it's on top. That hole is going to be a challenge and I'm glad with one of the tough pins away -- Q. What did you hit today? PAUL GOYDOS: I hit 8-iron. It seems that's what I hit. I was having a little trouble with the winds there, and my caddie was saying it was helping a little bit and I didn't buy it, and it was. I was throwing grass and getting it hurting; I hit it over the 16th green, so I was struggling. We were talking about it there, with the skyboxes there, you can't get a good feel, it's like walls there, and it swirls up there, too, and maybe just one of those things. I hit a good swing, hit it solid, but just didn't work out. Q. How is 14 playing? PAUL GOYDOS: Long. I thought I pulled it a little bit and was a little concerned it wasn't going to carry but it did, and I thought by a lot it didn't. It must have just landed in the rough and skipped barely 230. I actually made a pretty good par there and the wind is supposed to blow from the south all week. It won bother me if they decided to move the tee up, so it wasn't 250 into the wind. Q. What did your third do? PAUL GOYDOS: I hit an okay pitch. I had one of those lies, in the bermuda seed -- again if it's overseeded, my ball is sitting down in the hay, and you hit a big old chunk. I had the ball sitting up in the bermuda which if I was hitting an iron wouldn't be a big deal but pitching, I kind of got underneath it and didn't hit a great pitch and stopped about 15 feet and made it. Again, one of those, making a bogey there, who knows where things go. Making those 10-, 15-footers for par, makes everything else a little bit easier. One of those bogeys, you're not happy to make a bogey, but considering the first three shots I hit in the hole, bogey was pretty much more destiny. Q. Could you just talk about from a golfer's standpoint what it's like in that hole, 16 green, 17 tee box area, obviously it's a popular site for spectators, but how does it look to golfers? How do you view that whole area? PAUL GOYDOS: I think it's tremendous. I'm not a big fan of Pete Dye, but they have done a great job here. You've got to give credit where credit is due. The second shot at the 16th, for the distance, and I had 214 to the hole today which means if you've got some length off the tee, guys are hitting 6-iron in there. Not an easy shot. But it's a lot more difficult shot standing in the fairway at 16 than it may look from spectator standpoint. 17 is, again, they picked a good yardage and they could have easily made that hole 165 and just been ridiculous, but they picked a pretty good yardage. Today is as long as it's going to play at 147. You know, on Tuesday and whatnot, if I was just out here with my buddies, I don't think it would be that big of a deal. Come Thursday, that green looks like it's pretty small out there and the reality is, it's pretty small out there. And then 18, I think the tee shot is about a tough a tee shot as we have on TOUR. From that standpoint, those are gut-check holes and see how much trust you have in your game, and starting on the back nine and playing those holes as 7, 8, 9 of the tournament, as opposed to 70, 71, 72, those are two different things. You could not have designed three better holes to finish this tournament. Q. Is 147 what it's playing? PAUL GOYDOS: Something in that area, I would guess. Q. What do you hit off 18? PAUL GOYDOS: Driver. Today was almost a 3-wood. Last year we had the north winds so it didn't matter. I was hitting driver and a wood in there last year. They lengthened 18 when they redid it. Q. By a lot? PAUL GOYDOS: I would guess 15 yards. And for me, it used to be if I stood on that tee and hit it right down the middle, where the tee was in, I would go through, and moving back 15 yards, today I was one yard from the rough and hit it right down the right center of the fairway and I was one yard from the rough. Is a in a sense for a guy like me, I have more room to the right to hit it out of. You used to have to hit it into the corner, so it always was an awkward tee shot and it not playing as awkward now. But if you hit it 15 yards farther than me, I would think it's a very awkward tee shot. Charley Hoffman hit 3-wood. Q. What did you hit for your second shot? PAUL GOYDOS: I hit 6-iron to the front part of the green. It was a possible 5-iron. I felt like if I hit it and flew it on top, it would probably go over. Just one of those holes that for me, 35 feet short of the hole is pretty good and probably as good as I'm going to get, barring a good bounce, and over the green wouldn't have been very good, so we took that out of play. Me and my caddie had a good day. 3 was a 6-iron and I hit 7-iron and then made a 45-footer. One of those things, the golf course tempts you into doing really stupid things, and we did a good job of avoiding those today. Q. 17, you must not have rinsed many balls over the years. PAUL GOYDOS: Probably a couple. I think this is my second. First time I ever hit it over the green. I know I've missed the green left, but not a lot. Usually when you play your practice round, you take your balls and just throw them in the water just to get it out of your system. Again, I think it's a great hole. It's a hole where the last group -- this tournament is not over -- I don't care what the lead is, until the guy gets it on land on 17. You can hit it out to the right on 18 and chip one down the fairway and make 5 or 6, but the tournament is not over -- I don't care if you have a ten-shot lead. The tournament is not over until you finish the 17th. Q. Were you joking about throwing your balls in the water? PAUL GOYDOS: I didn't do it this year. I have in the past; I should have. I hit it in the water; there you go. That hole has gotten much more difficult. The shot I hit today would not have gone in the water in March when we had bentgrass. But, they also softened it a little, and the front slope is not as severe as it was and the right slope is not as severe. They did a wonderful job. They could have made it just ridiculous, and they didn't. They did a wonderful job. It rewards good shots and it certainly doesn't like bad shots. Q. So if you come to 17 Sunday with a lead, you're going to have all kind of good shots? PAUL GOYDOS: That's what you want. This tournament, that's what they wanted. I couldn't imagine not having the hole on 17. If you had the hole as 13 or something, could you recover. Guys are going to have to step up -- not that I've remotely been in that position but somebody has to step up and make a good shot there if you want to win the tournament. And it's not a 3-iron; it's an 8- or a 9-iron. I think we all can do that. Q. You said this course tempts you into doing stupid things; can you think of a shot today where you were texted? PAUL GOYDOS: No. 3. The pin was back left and the wind was kind of cutting, so it was kind of a difficult pin to get at anyways, and if you miss it left, you're going to make four or five. You're just not going to get it up-and-down. It probably was a perfect shot and probably tried to draw a 6-iron against the wind and kind of hit into the hill and maybe rolled up on top of it and had 6-iron out and went back and hit 7-iron, which is more toward the front right sender of the green. The greens are pretty firm and I hit a pretty good shot and hit it right in the middle of the green where you really need to hit it in the middle no matter where the pin is, and I had a 45-footer. That's the type of thing, and now there are times where it would have been a perfect shot to hit it, and it just didn't feel right and would have been very easy to try to do something stupid there. Q. Seemed like you were playing pretty decent last week, with the exception of one or two holes. Was today a continuation of that where you strike it that well, or did you have a phenomenal putting round today? PAUL GOYDOS: I played good. It is a continuation of last week. Last week I played reasonably well. I had a little stretch where I putted like a blind man but other than that I played pretty good last week. I wasn't going to shoot 18-under or whatever the heck Anthony Kim shot, but I had a decent week last week. Really tee-to-green I've got a little better the last couple of months, maybe starting at Bay Hill or even in Florida where again, bermudagrass pops up. It is getting better, though the results may not show that, do I feel like I'm playing better. Q. Call your broker to transfer some cash to Wachovia to take advantage of the 16 percent deal? PAUL GOYDOS: I can't wait to see what the rough is like next year. Q. You're not transferring the money? PAUL GOYDOS: I was reading through some magazine, maybe USA Today that said you're going to get 16 percent of your money. I went: What's that? I thought it said you already had to have money in the account. Q. No. You have until May 30th, and it's only for three months. PAUL GOYDOS: There's a maximum, I think you can only earn three or four hundred bucks in that period of time. Q. Well, 16 percent a year so you're really only going to get four percent but you'll get four percent for three months? PAUL GOYDOS: Pretty good considering how the market is doing these days. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: If we could touch on your birdies on 1, 2 and 5. PAUL GOYDOS: 1, I hit a good drive -- last year that hole played into the wind with a 5- or 6-iron, maybe 4-iron and I hit driver, wedge in there about two feet. I can even handle that distance. 2, I hit kind of an okay drive, squirted into the right rough but was playable, 3-iron into the fairway and had 110 yards to the hole to a pin that's back-center and I tell you what, if they had had that pin -- every year I've played that back center pin, I've hit it over the green, every time, I'm 9-for-9 that it's been there every year I've played. When I first hit wedge I thought it went over the green again but it stopped just pin-high which is only about three paces from going over and I hit an 8-footer. 4, I made a 15-footer for a 2-putt. 5, I hit a driver and a 5-iron to about 15, 20 feet and made birdie. At this point I'm making pretty much everything I look at. On 6, I hit the ball in the bunker and I thought I hit it a reasonably soft bunker shot and I looked up and couldn't see my ball. That's panic. You want a little panic for TOUR players? You look up, and "Where is my ball?" For some reason it had gone about a 45-degree angle right towards those bushes but stayed okay. It was you actually a pretty good bogey. 7, I hit a good drive with a wedge to 12 feet and made that putt. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Paul Goydos, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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