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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 11, 2008

Paul Goydos

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA

NELSON SILVERIO: Welcome runner-up in the 2008 PLAYERS Championship. Why don't you just get us started with some general comments on today.
PAUL GOYDOS: Tough day. I'm standing on the driving range warming up, and there are times you can't swing; it's too windy. If you would have told me I was going to shoot -- there was a time, I bogeyed the first couple of holes early, and you know, obviously staying patient. I thought anybody who shot -- whoever finished under par was going to win. If you would have told me Sergio -- Quinney and Sergio both shot under par in the second-to-last group, you've got to tip your hat to that. That's impressive.

Q. Do you go away from here thinking, wow, what an incredible week, or do you go away thinking you had a chance to win?
PAUL GOYDOS: I think you go away thinking all of it. You need to learn. And yes, we're not excited about bogeying the last hole or whatnot or hitting it in the water on the playoff hole. We're not excited about any of those things, but the reality of it is they happened and you need to learn and move on.
It's been an exciting time and I played good and I also learned something maybe -- I stress the word maybe, about myself and how I handle situations. You've got to move on from that.
You notice I didn't answer that question.

Q. Can you talk about the playoff hole and the shot you hit?
PAUL GOYDOS: I got beat by three. You know, it was obviously the same as we had it before. I hit the same club. I did hit as good a shot from a solid standpoint, swinging-hard standpoint in the regulation play. In the playoff I tried to hit the exact same thing, to be honest with you. I may have stepped the line two feet farther to the right so I maybe would catch that ridge, but the wind stood it up a little bit.
Again, first playoff, my experience told me, it's not time to try to dink a 9-iron. It's time to stick with the shot you hit. I hit a really good shot there on hole 71, and I hit not quite as good a shot on hole 73.

Q. Did you think it was on the green when you first hit it?
PAUL GOYDOS: I thought I hit it good, but I think it flighted higher. The other one penetrated a little better through the wind. This one kind of floated on me and the ball ended up sinking.

Q. Earlier in the week, you described yourself as a nervous person; how were your nerves coming in the last four or five holes?
PAUL GOYDOS: I was nervous last night. So maybe I'm getting used to it. But I was nervous, absolutely. We made good decisions and I hit decent shots. 14 I hit as good a drive and 5-iron as I've ever hit in my life. It didn't work out, but that's what makes golf a nutty game. I thought I played 16 the way I should have played 16; we made good decisions but we didn't get ahead of ourselves.
I hit a good shot on 17 and hit my typical drive on 18. To be honest with you, I hit the pitch a little bit fat but it was sitting a little bit tight in Bermuda. I almost thought about bumping it up through all the slopes, but that didn't excite me much, either. It didn't look like it was going to go in. I hit a good putt but maybe pushed it a little bit. When I'm nervous, my miss is a pull, and I made a good aggressive stroke and it didn't go in.

Q. Were you any more nervous on the playoff?
PAUL GOYDOS: No, I felt comfortable all day. I got off to a shaky start and thought I got better as the day went on, and that's not a bad thing, and I felt pretty good standing on the tee.

Q. That was 9-iron?
PAUL GOYDOS: I hit wedge.

Q. When you knocked in the chip on 10, did you have a feeling this was your day?
PAUL GOYDOS: It was getting borderline ridiculous at that point. The ball didn't come out of the rough very well on the second shot, and I didn't make the best swing of my life, either. I don't know what you would use -- obviously a good visualization on the shot; I actually kind of saw the shot going in to be honest with you. It's not that I predicted it or felt like I was going to make it, just kind of it was there and I hit the pitch. First when I hit it, I thought I hit it too good, and it came up short and just released out and kept trickling and disappeared, surprisingly.

Q. Talk about the second shot on 18, and I'm sure you were watching the situation to see if Sergio had made that putt --
PAUL GOYDOS: We decided what we were going to do. The ball came out better than I thought it would. I had 190-something to the front and I hit 7-iron and I got it within 20 yards of the front of the green. That was probably the biggest flyer, maybe 15, you know, second biggest.
But yeah, I didn't think -- the only club I could have hit to maybe get it up by the green would have been a rescue, and that didn't really seem like a good idea. What you want is, I had a putt on the last hole to win the tournament. I don't really think that you could ask for any more than that, other than it being a little shorter.

Q. Can you describe what it was like to step on the 17th tee with the one-shot lead?
PAUL GOYDOS: You know, we had talked about 17 a lot in here. You guys seem to be obsessed with the hole. (Laughter).
But I kind of told myself before yesterday that I was going to think about Gilligan's Island and try to get on, what, Cast Away. I was trying to calm myself down a little bit and make levity, I guess is the word we use.
Again, I think my caddie did just a tremendous job there. I was trying to get the wind to be hurting a little bit. I was trying to hit 9-iron. I'm just sitting there trying to hit 9-iron, and he was going to have none of it. He liked the wedge. He thought the wind wasn't -- he was absolutely right. I couldn't have hit a better shot, and two or three inches to the right, it might have rolled down to the hole like Sergio's did in the playoff. I couldn't have executed the shot any better.

Q. You try to go low-key on everything, and this seems to be a special week. I just wonder, obviously you haven't had any time to reflect, but can you sort of put this week in perspective in your golfing career?
PAUL GOYDOS: Well, we're out here to win. This is my third, second or third, 2nd, and it obviously doesn't rank with winning at Bay Hill or winning at Sony.
Having said that, it's as much fun as I've had, and again, I get to do a lot of firsts this week. You know, first time leading and first playoff. I've got to think 0-1 is a better playoff than 0-0, right? Am I wrong there? (Laughter.) I don't know, maybe you guys in the media can decipher that one.
So I got to do a lot of things. Again, it goes back to what I said yesterday. This is why we play, to have a chance today. I'm reasonably pleased with how I played again, 2-over par after three and played the last 15 holes on a very tough day even par, and I felt like I got beat. Instead of the shot Sergio hit in the playoff, people may talk about how Goydos hit it in the water, blah, blah, blah, but Sergio hit it two feet. I got beat; that's golf.
I played good golf, and as people have found out, that doesn't mean win, unfortunately. You can't control it. No defense; I couldn't tackle the little guy. He's probably not little, that's probably not a fair thing; he could probably take me pretty easily. (Laughter).
But you can't kneecap him. You just have to accept the guy beat you and move on. I got a chance to play with him two or three times already this year, and he's right there on the precipice of great things.

Q. Knowing you had the lead with one hole to go, do you feel like, boy, this great chance slipped away?
PAUL GOYDOS: Well, the key is to have the lead with no holes to go. Until that happens, you're just playing.
Yes, I understand what you're saying. Again, it's the way it is. I had a chance to win the golf tournament. It wasn't as a 15-footer I don't think. I'm not excited about that, but it's the game. I mean, this golf course is designed to have -- Tim Finchem, this is the perfect scenario. He's got a playoff on the 17th hole, Sergio hits it two feet, I hit it in the water, and you have 18, everybody fits, and that's what happens in, quote-unquote, major championships. It just had that feel from a sense of how hard the course played.

Q. You came out of a three-man race. At what point did you realize you were in a battle with the group ahead of you, and did you watch the scoreboard?
PAUL GOYDOS: I do watch the scoreboards. I think people don't realize, you're on standing on the 16th green, and I waited for somebody to putt on 17 before I tapped in my birdie putt. Once you get to the middle of the fairway at 16, it's pretty hard not to know what's going on, and I think it would be lunacy to not want to know what's going on. There's so many decisions that have to be made those last few holes; I think you do need to know what's in front of you. I think I had an advantage, as much as bogeying the last hole, I though I had the advantage of being in position for a poker tournament; I was in the last group and I got to see what I had to do, I just didn't do it. .

Q. Did you see the 18th hole play out?
PAUL GOYDOS: For?

Q. For Sergio.
PAUL GOYDOS: I got on the tee, and there's that big television screen, looked like he had a five- or six- or seven-foot putt for par or something like that, that's all I know.

Q. On Thursday, with about four or five of us after your little press conference was over, one of the things you said was that if Sergio GarcÃa ever figures out the putting, he's going to win a lot of tournaments. Of course, today, an example?
PAUL GOYDOS: I think we need to understand, his putting, he hits the ball so good -- we talked about the second round where he hit 16 greens. By virtue of being such a good ball-striker, he's going to have a lot more 20- and 30-footers, and therefore it's not going to look like he's putting as well as a guy who is hitting eight greens and chipping it to five feet and making them.
So when you say that he's a -- you know, he struggles with his putting, you need to put it in the context with the rest of his game, and the rest of his game is pretty good; so therefore, he has less opportunities per se to make putts, because he's hitting 16 greens, and he hits it good, but he doesn't hit it two feet every hole.
So when we talk, I think it's a little bit off-center to say that he's not a good putter. I think it's a function of how his game has evolved, and eventually, you know, he had a good week this week putting obviously; he putted good today, I would assume. I don't know if that makes sense.

Q. Could you talk briefly about the putt on 4, and also, the tee shot on 18, how hard a shot that is with the wind left-to-right? What can you do with that shot?
PAUL GOYDOS: The putt on 4 -- you know, I bogeyed 2 and 3. Again, it goes back to timing. People ask what was good this week, and timing, struggling, I had a putt -- you could putt it in the water. I mean, downwind, downhill, down whatever, and we read it well. I hit the putt right where I was trying to and might have hit it a touch harder than I wanted to but not much, but to be honest with you, it didn't go in the center. That was the most amazing thing; it kind of went in, I'm guessing it would be the right center. And at the speed it was at, I'm a little surprised it didn't lip out, to be perfectly honest with you.
But that was probably during my jumpy period. I made a couple bogeys, I'd made a birdie, then I'd 3-putt the next hole, and I'm just trying to find my footing. And really, I think, what settled me down was the second shot on 6. That may be the best shot I hit all day. I'm just trying to make a par, and let's just work on the fundamentals.

Q. And 18?
PAUL GOYDOS: This is the wind I'm assuming it was designed for. You've got the wind coming off the water, and you try to pick a target and you try to be aggressive with it, and I didn't hit the shots weak; I pushed them. I didn't feel like I held on or I made a bad swing, consciously.
You know, I don't know, Freud will have to talk to you about the subconscious on that issue, but the last three days it got away from me on the right. I doubt I'll be last person. I don't know where Sergio and Quinney drove it on the last hole --

Q. Same place.
PAUL GOYDOS: It's just a very difficult hole, especially with that wind direction.

Q. If you could have had your choice, would you rather go first or second in the playoff?
PAUL GOYDOS: Well, now I'd rather go second. (Laughter).
I was thinking about that. They pulled the numbers and I thought maybe whoever pulled No. 1 was going to get a choice, and I'm glad he didn't because then would I have had to make a decision there, and I'm not sure what the right decision is. I think they would always tell you to go first and put pressure, although I didn't do a very good job of that. I would think you would want to go first and hit a good shot. I think that if I hit the ball on the green, it make's Sergio's shot harder. And I don't necessarily think hitting the ball in the water made Sergio's shot any easier, because he just watched my ball splash down, and two, now it's like in a sense, if Sergio hits a mediocre shot and hits it in the water, I don't think it made his shot that much easier. That's what made his shot that much more impressive.

Q. How much of a sense did you get that you were a crowd favorite as an underdog?
PAUL GOYDOS: Up until today, I had not. Today, the crowd was unbelievable. I mean, they were definitely pulling harder for me, for whatever reason today than any other day, and the crowd was unbelievable, even after hitting in the water and making a mess of the -- that was the only double of the week, by the way -- making a mess of 17 in the playoff. The crowd, they couldn't have been nicer. Maybe, in a sense, I got to feel for a day what it was like to be Tiger Woods in a sense with the crowd behind you.
The crowds treat Sergio wonderfully. I think our golf crowds are very much behind him and like him a lot, too.

Q. This is a really stupid question, but what would be the range of scores Tiger could have shot this week for 72 holes?
PAUL GOYDOS: You're right. (Laughter.) No idea. He's got a bad knee, so he probably only would have shot 15- or 20-under.
Tiger plays well, Tiger's going to win. I think anybody -- I think if Phil plays well, Phil will win. The top players -- Sergio played like a champion. Again, I don't know what his stats were for today, but to shoot 1-under par, he must hit a lot of fairways or a lot of greens. Sergio is a potential top two or three player in the world. He's still a kid; how old is he, 28? He's a kid. He's got a long way to go in his career and he's going to win a lot of tournaments and he's going to win major championships, and those guys rise to the top. I mean, he played great golf today, 1-under par.
What did Quinney shoot today, 1-under par today? Someone needs to write a sidebar about that round, because that's pretty impressive, too.

Q. There were apparently some people in the stands on 18 who were watching on the little screens and could tell what was happening with the shots, and when Sergio made the putt to win in the playoff, apparently a whole group of people up there started crying because they had fallen so much in love with you as a golfer and with your game and with your struggle, and so I just wondered if you heard from anyone.
PAUL GOYDOS: I had not heard that. I'm touched. I don't know if I would describe being a professional golfer as a struggle, but yeah, the people, especially today, it was -- the question before about what I'm going to take away from this week, positives and negatives, again, in a sense, from a crowd standpoint, I got to be Tiger Woods for a day. People were emotionally involved in what I was doing and people were unbelievably encouraging. You did feel like the favorite.
Golf fans root for the favorite, that's what they do. And today they rooted for me. I don't know what to say to those people to be honest with you. I don't have the right words other than thank you.

Q. The impression on 18, you touched on that briefly, you mentioned the lie; what kind of shot were you hoping for?
PAUL GOYDOS: My third shot? I wasn't trying to chunk it, let's start with that. (Laughter).
The ball was sitting down just a little bit, and it wasn't the best lie I've ever had in my life. Having said that, it wasn't the worst lie I've ever had in my life either. And I went back and forth and thought I would roll a tier and try to run it back, and that seemed rather dangerous and I could imagine Johnny Miller scalding me for that.
I've been working pretty hard on that shot. I had a 50-yard shot, and I needed to fly it about 35 yards. The greens are pretty firm, and I think if I catch it solid, I'm going to land it on the lower tier and it's going to bounce near that other little tier and it's going to stop on a ten-foot circle and that would have been pretty good.
I caught it a little bit heavy, and that's why it barely covered. If that goes back down the slope, it's just a nightmare scenario. And the reason it got as far as it did is because it wasn't hit very solid and therefore didn't have as much spin. I hit it poor enough to where it might release it by the hole, but it didn't work out. And honestly, I hit a good putt. I thought the putt I hit was -- it didn't go in. It was a decent read, it wasn't a great read, but I didn't hit a bad putt. I didn't hit some hideous, ugly, normal putt that I hit in those situations.
Look at the putt I hit on 17. I hit it 18 inches, crawled it in the left edge. Considering, handling the situation, I thought I handled it pretty well.

Q. Back to the question of crowd support, how would you compare the crowd support to '96?
PAUL GOYDOS: '96 was different. Feinstein's book had come out, "A Good Walk Spoiled," and John made me a hero at that point. They were good there, too. I mean, it's not to the level of this. In that tournament, it's a totally different feel, and I had a rather big lead at one point at Bay Hill, I would say two or three shots, on a golf course that doesn't have -- again, every shot here could turn into unmitigated disaster if you don't prepare well and hit a good shot. Bay Hill that day didn't have that.
This crowd was more, again, I wasn't there for the weekend, it was more like it was at Bethpage. Again, they were very supportive, very boisterous and they were very excited about this event. Bay Hill, every year, I'm not saying the crowds are bad there, but it's more laid back than I think most events. This event and the majors have a different feel to them.

Q. When you think about the putt on 4, holing out on 10, and the approach on 12, it seemed like every time Sergio made a run at you, you would pull away. Do you feel in any way that you lost this tournament, or do you feel like Sergio went and got it?
PAUL GOYDOS: I think it's both. I think Sergio definitely went and got it. I don't know what he shot on the back nine. Had to have been 2- or 3-under on the back nine. It was hard. Those are impressive scores.
But, again, it's a 72-hole event, and we're going to total them up at the end of 72 or 73 in this instance. And this is not a golf course -- and the way the conditions were, I wasn't out there thinking, again, I've got this lead or this or Sergio is doing that. I was, you know, how am I going to get this ball onto that concrete green thing up there.
Just the golf course got so difficult in the sense that it made it easier for the situation, because you just -- you couldn't waste energy worrying about what Sergio Garcia was doing, and I guarantee you if Sergio comes in here and you ask him that question, he says the exact same thing. You can't waste any energy there, you need every ounce on this golf course to stay alive, and that's really what you're trying to do.

Q. You didn't look loose all day; did the nerves get to you at all?
PAUL GOYDOS: I would make the argument I was much more nervous the first three or four holes than the last three or four holes. That's typically my MO; in Hawaii when I won I butchered the first three holes and was holding on for dear life and then it kind of calmed down and played well on the back nine.
Here, the same way, got off to a slow start, not the start I was hoping and was nervous and kind of trying to hang on, and then I made a couple of good swings and a couple of solid putts and got lucky on 4. I played pretty solidly after the 3-putt on 5 for a while. The pitch shot on 10 was, you know, obnoxious. And 12, we made a great decision. The pin, where it was, if you're going to miss that tee shot, you want to miss it in a sense long in the rough where I had a pretty wide-open shot, so we made a pretty good decision on the tee shot there.
Hit a good shot. Just it worked out. Again, I'm happy with the way I handled the situation. This is a hard golf course.

Q. You mentioned getting to be Tiger Woods for a day --
PAUL GOYDOS: That's from a crowd standpoint, not from a talent standpoint. (Laughter).

Q. Was there a point you thought it was too good and you didn't want it to end?
PAUL GOYDOS: No, I definitely didn't want the day to keep going. If it would have been a five-mile-an-hour wind and 75 degrees, maybe.
But it was a great day, and kind of back to the same answer, you give so much energy on this golf course to the shot at hand that you don't absorb enough of the atmosphere around you, to be honest with you. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's what the zone is; I don't know, but I've never been there.
In the heat of the moment, I remember walking down the 7th fairway and I kind of said, God, we've already played six holes, where did that go?
So in a sense, it was fun, and you could kind of let it in because you're only playing golf for 20 minutes, you're walking around and standing there for another four hours, so you can, you know, if you have a chance to go back to what you need to do, and this golf course especially -- maybe part of the problem is I should treat every golf course like this golf course. We could go through a whole dissertation on that.
The reality is I noticed it; it wasn't a focal point.

Q. What was going through your mind after that second shot in the playoff? You hit the water, and now after the playoff, do you have any new words you would use to describe 17?
PAUL GOYDOS: I think it did exactly what it was designed to do. For me to complain to Pete Dye now would be as sour grapes as you could drop. The hole was designed now to do exactly what it did. Just got me instead of somebody else.
And it gets somebody every year. That's what it's designed to do. That's why I think that hole -- if that hole was 14, for example, you hit it in the water, you can make it up. If you hit it -- when it's the 71st hole or whatever -- are you going to make it up on 18? Come on. I think the hole does exactly what it should do. When the ball went in the water, I said, "Well, I'd better get another one." I marked it, wrote my mom on it, and waited for Sergio to hit it two feet. What else are you going to do?
To be hones with you, when the ball went in the water, the tournament is not over. Sergio ended it with his next swing, but you could make a nine on that hole; we've seen it. So you've got to just stay and hit the shot, and hit it as good as I could and it went in the water. Already hit it in the water on Thursday, so I already had a good yardage feel for the drop area. You move on. But then Sergio hit a shot and I was kind of getting in the way at that point.

Q. At the end of the day, how pleased are you with the finish, and how big is this for your family?
PAUL GOYDOS: You know, hopefully my family's happy, I don't know.
I'm very pleased. Again, I played well. I may have some mistakes, but the day I don't make mistakes is the day I'm dead. But that's part of the game. And again, even par the last 15 holes on a very hard golf course, in my opinion, again, you may look at 18 as being, oh, he bogeyed 18 to lose, but the reality is, in my opinion, to an extent, I got beat. To an extent, I, okay, gave it away a little bit, but to an extent I got beat.

Q. You're wearing probably the most publicized hat in the country right now. What are you going to do with it?
PAUL GOYDOS: I got a couple emails from the baseball coach. They won last night, by the way. I'm sure you were worried. (Laughter).
You know, I hope to God it's not the hat. (Laughter).
You know, the affiliation with Long Beach State, where I went to school, my father worked there for 25 years starting in the late '50s or something like that. He was a 20-year Navy guy. So it's not just a, I went to school there. My mom still lives across the street from the school. I grew up right there.
I remember when I was a kid going to basketball games and Jerry Tarkanian was there. It's a great school for what it is, and that's a school where average Joes can go get an education to improve themselves, and I think we talk about the Harvards and Stanfords of the world, and a lot of the people the people that are making changes in the world are the Long Beach States with limited means that go out and better themselves, and I don't think we give schools like that enough credit.

Q. Do you expect to have a hat deal by Thursday, and do you already have an agent?
PAUL GOYDOS: I've already turned things down. I've played the game. I have an agent, Blue Giraffe is the name of the company, and I'll let them deal with those things. It's not due to lack of interest, although that's part of it. It's due to just finding the right thing.
My focus, you know, again, considering where I was in early October in 2006, my focus is to play the best golf I can. I'm not worried about what's on my head, to be perfectly honest with you. We played for $9 million this week. I think I'll survive.

End of FastScripts

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