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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 8, 2008Paul GoydosPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA Q. How was the course playing? PAUL GOYDOS: Good. I mean, the course is in excellent shape, and that tends to drive the scores down a little bit. If you get bumpy greens and lousy fairways, the scores would be higher. The course is in great shape and it's going to help the scores. Q. As things go on today, were you sensing that the greens were getting firmer at all? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, they're going to. They're going to dry out. It's supposed to hit 90 degrees today and then it's supposed to blow 10 or 15 miles an hour. 4-under in the afternoon is going to be a much better score than my 4-under in the morning. Q. Can you talk about how nice it was to salvage a 4 at 17 instead of something worse? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, I started on the back nine, and going into 17 hit the water. I hit a good shot, I just hit it too good. I hit it pin high and bounced in the water. Q. What did you hit? PAUL GOYDOS: 8-iron. Obviously in hindsight I would have hit a 9-iron. But yeah, I hit a good little wedge shot about 15 feet, made it for bogey. I didn't walk away from that hole upset. A lot of times you make a bogey, you walk away grumbling, and I walked away in a good mood. A couple good swings on 18 and made par and birdied 1, 2 and 3. I make a 5 there at worst, I'm probably not standing here. Q. When you played 17 today was it as docile as it could be? PAUL GOYDOS: It was a little bit windy. Still, the problem for me was that we couldn't quite figure out if it was helping or hurting, and unfortunately it was helping. I didn't have that mindset on the tee, and I paid the price. The problem you get there is you get the amphitheater effect with all the -- I don't know what you'd call it, the skyboxes and stuff, tends to cause the wind to swirl a little bit and just make it a little bit -- you add a skybox and the hole gets harder. It's a great hole, one of the best holes we play all year. It's well-positioned in the round. Q. In a way the skyboxes do what the trees do at Augusta? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, it may be a bit less than that, but yeah. It makes it a little harder to figure out what's going on, at least it was for us. Q. There are a lot of players who say just the opposite of 17, where it comes in the round. Why do you like it where it is? PAUL GOYDOS: Because I just think that it's a hole that you can -- I guarantee you, of all the par-3s that hole will have the most 2s and the most 5s. So late in the round, you have a chance in a sense to make a birdie there and kind of maybe improve your score, plus you've got 16. And if you're behind you have a chance to catch up if someone makes a mistake. I think what you want down the stretch on Sunday, doesn't really matter too much on Thursday and Friday, but what you want is a chance for big swings on the leaderboard, and I think this golf course brings that to the plate, and Augusta National used to bring that to the plate. That's really what you're looking for. Q. What was the reason today's round here was so much better than some of your other rounds, past performances here? PAUL GOYDOS: I personally like the changes. I like the Bermudagrass. I think the golf course is in great shape. It's running. With the Bermuda rough, I like that better, too. It's not just drive it in the rough and wedge it back into the fairway. You actually have to come up with an idea of how to make a decision. That's why when you have rough like this, which again, is lower, you've got to make a decision. What do I want to do here? When golfers have got to make decisions, it generally screws them up, and that's why you're going to see guys hit it in the rough here and make doubles and triples, as opposed to when you just chip it sideways, they make a lot of bogeys and pars, and I think that just makes for more exciting golf. I like the changes. I hate to give Tim credit for anything, but they did a wonderful job. Q. Can you talk about your relationship with John Merrick, John Mallinger and the other two Long Beach guys on TOUR? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, unfortunately for me they're a lot better than I am. They're good kids. They're great players. We all play out of the same club in Long Beach, Virginia Country Club. Peter Tomasulo, who's playing the Nationwide Tour, and John Cook, who's playing the Senior Tour, is also out there, working with Jamie Mulligan. I learn from them. They're good, smart kids. They came out here ready to play, and they've kind of proven it. I think Mallinger had a year last year better than any year I've ever had. It's good to see, and they're good kids, and I think they're going to have long careers, and I'm happy for them. Q. Just as much as any player, you're like fascinated with stats and ShotLink and the computer? PAUL GOYDOS: To an extent, yeah. Q. Now that they've got everything, what do you look at for your game the most? What do you pay the most attention to? PAUL GOYDOS: I think the stat that's the most important stat that they get is the distance of putts made. If you're making 150 feet worth of putts, you're having a good day. I'll bet you I was at least that today. Last year I was in the Top 10, 80 feet a day. I think that's the stat that intrigues me the most. Unless you're hitting it pretty good, that's a stat you need to do very well at. Q. Have you been always fascinated with stats and sports in general? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, just for entertainment. I don't think you can learn a whole lot from it, especially in golf. I think you can in baseball a little bit more, or those kind of tell you a little bit more. Golf, everything is so -- your proximity to the hole has to do with how well you drive it. Your putting average, how close you hit it to the hole, everything is kind of tied in, so you can't say definitively from your stats what you did. Maybe driving accuracy may be an issue. But the greens in regulation has a lot to do with driving accuracy. It's all tied together so it's hard to really take much out of it in my opinion, if that makes sense. End of FastScripts |
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