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THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY COCA-COLASeptember 23, 2008Anthony KimATLANTA, GEORGIA JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Anthony Kim, thank you for joining us. Your first TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. Congratulations on your season, congratulations on your two wins, and congratulations on the Ryder Cup. Maybe some opening comments about a great week for you last week. ANTHONY KIM: Thanks. Yeah, it's been a good year. Obviously last year I wanted to be here. I wasn't ready to be here. But this year I came in with a new attitude, and definitely been playing some better golf. Obviously coming off an emotional week at the Ryder Cup was an experience I'll never forget, and hopefully something I can draw back on going into this week. Q. We just talked to one of your teammates, Chad Campbell, about the Ryder Cup, and he said that really the new fresh faces really gave a new dimension to the U.S. Team. You hadn't been there before, but did you feel that's what you brought to the table? ANTHONY KIM: I think definitely there was some more excitement than I've seen on TV when the U.S. Ryder Cup team has shown. But like Captain Azinger said, it's a lot easier to jump around, be happy and smiling when you're leading. We played some good golf as a team, definitely bonded as a group of men, and it was nice to go out there and fight for each other when you really do appreciate the guy on your right and left. Q. I was wondering in your mind what you thought some of the bigger shots and bigger turning points were for the week. We've been kind of talking about Campbell's 5-iron on the first day, Stricker's putt sort of to keep the ball rolling. It looked there for a while there were various times when the bleeding could have started and it didn't. ANTHONY KIM: Well, the bleeding can always start on either end. But that putt that Steve made, that 20-footer to halve it, I didn't see where his third shot was, but I know on that putt I had my fingers crossed and was hoping that thing was going to go in, and surely it did. It was a huge putt. And when we were leaving the golf course on Sunday night after all the media stuff was done, we looked back and we were all talking, we really considered that a turning point. Obviously a great captain's pick. Q. You've been so disciplined in sticking to your routines and basically being a good boy. Did you allow yourself a night Sunday? ANTHONY KIM: Yeah, I mean, I had a couple (smiling) adult beverages, but it was all in good fun. Definitely enjoyed being around the guys that fought so hard for me, and vice versa. It was just a time to blow it all out and have some fun. Now I'm here, here at East Lake, and it's time to start my routine all over again. Q. Have you ever heard Boo's orangutan story before? ANTHONY KIM: No, but that was hilarious. He said it in the team room. We were all celebrating in there, and he got up on a chair and told us the story. I could hear that story 100 times and keep laughing (laughter). Q. You're the youngest on the Ryder Cup team the youngest here. Your future is so bright. What would you like to take away from here if you don't get a victory? What's big about this month for Anthony Kim? ANTHONY KIM: Everything was big about this month. I played well at -- I don't even know what month we're in, to be honest with you (laughter). Q. September. ANTHONY KIM: At the BMW Championship I played some solid golf, finished third there. Obviously Camilo played great and deserved to win. I gave myself an opportunity coming down the back nine, and as a golfer that's really all you can ask for. I just had the best week of golf in my entire life, the best experience of my life, something I'll never forget. It's something I'll cherish for a very long time. Q. Are you worried that after what happened last week there's going to be anything emotionally left in the tank for this week? ANTHONY KIM: Well, there better be. I mean, I'm playing against 29 other players who deserve to be here who played great golf for a number of tournaments to get here. It did take an emotional toll on me because our team did grind so hard. We put everything we had into it. But it's what we do for a living. You've got to get up, be ready to play, and go out there and try and make some birdies. Q. We're with the local NBC affiliate. We just came from a driving range at a par-3 course where probably 80 percent of their clientele is of Korean heritage, and there's a real buzz about you, your success. Have you stopped to think or had any time to think about the impact? You're now pretty high visibility after the Ryder Cup, even for those who don't normally follow golf, and what that might mean to people who might think about taking up the game or increase their participation after seeing what you've done and your folks' hard work to get you where you are? ANTHONY KIM: Well, my goal in my life is -- where I got my goal from in my life is from my mother, and she always wanted me to inspire other people like she did for me. If I can have one more kid or one more person enjoy the game of golf and find happiness in just going out on the golf course and shooting 120, you know, that really makes me feel good. At the end of the day, I'm not out here to just put on a show for everybody; I really do want to help people. My mom told me that last night when I talked to her. She said, You've gotten to a point in your life where you have an opportunity to help kids and help other people. I had so many people help me along the way that it really does make me feel good to hear that. Q. I can't remember the exact quote, but at the BMW, you're in the 18th fairway, you and Eric are talking. I think, 7-iron, 8-iron was the discussion. I think you're two down to Camilo at the time. The thrust of what you said was, "I didn't come here to finish second." Is that going to be pretty much the week in, week out with you, that that's going to be the mindset? Because that's the type of stuff that people remember for a long time. Not the shot hopefully, but the attitude. I wasn't going to talk about the shot. ANTHONY KIM: I don't even know which shot you're talking about (laughter). No, that's the attitude I have. Last year the attitude was I want to win starting on hole No. 1. There's 71 other holes of golf that need to be played, and the conclusion I've come to is that I just want an opportunity with nine holes to go. I put myself in that position. Camilo made some great putts, hit the ball in the fairway when he needed to, and did everything he had to to win. Now, if I hit that 7-iron and miraculously hole it, that would have been a bonus, but I am out there to win. I'm not trying to just play for a check, or I would have hit it in the middle of the green with an 8-iron and two-putted. I'm not saying I look at the numbers, but I would have made about $150,000 more (laughter). I want to play for a trophy; that's why I practice, that's why I tee it up. I want to play for that trophy. Q. Of all the good things you've done in golf that have had people talking about you, whether it was your quick start out of OU trying to get your card, Wachovia, Congressional and now this, which of those do you think best introduced you to a public that may not be watching golf all that much? ANTHONY KIM: That's a good question. Q. I'm just glad you understand it. ANTHONY KIM: What was the question (laughter)? No, I think Valero, the tournament, my first PGA TOUR event. When I finished second there I think I got to meet some of the guys and they got more familiar with me. Finishing second there really put my name on the map, because the year I came out there were quite a few good players that come out of college. I may not have been the most highly touted one, but in my mind I deserved some of the attention but I didn't get it, which was fine. I had no problem playing for a trophy or playing for -- you know, playing to get my name out there. So I think once I did it on a big stage, and even though I didn't win, I played a good golf tournament. And it being my first one really put me out there. Q. What do you think last week did for you? ANTHONY KIM: Hopefully it inspired a lot more people to play golf and have some fun doing it. Q. How much did it mean to you to have the confidence of Azinger and all the other players and you going out first? ANTHONY KIM: It meant a great deal. I mean, everyone that played in the Ryder Cup is a good player. There's no easy matches out there. On any given day Sergio could beat me and I could beat Sergio, Padraig could beat Chad Campbell. All those match-ups were great match-ups. It's all a toss-up whoever played better that day. It gives me a great deal of confidence. I was looking forward to the challenge. Sergio is a good player, a very good player. I watched him on TV hit that shot against Tiger, close his eyes, running up the hill. So I know all about Sergio, and we've become good friends. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. So it was a challenge that I really wanted. Q. You're having to change gears and go from team play match play back to your own game this week. Is there anything from last week that you're going to add to your game, energy, enthusiasm, mindset that you can add to your individual game? ANTHONY KIM: Well, definitely on Sunday I took a different mindset out there than I did the first two days of play and said, Just let it go. If you finish second here you lose, so just go out there and fire at some pins, be a little bit more aggressive, and play like I did in college: just free-wheel it and have fun. I don't know if I did that the first two days as much as I wanted to, although Phil and I did win a point and a half on Friday. I don't know if I let my game go, and I'm going to try to do that this week. Hopefully it'll come around and I'll make some birdies. Q. Speaking of individual shots and the moment, so to speak, 12th tee on Sunday, a tee shot that I think three out of four previous times you stood there and you put it in the woods on the right. On Sunday you put it right where you needed to. I wonder, where you stood on that tee, what was the thought going through your head after doing what you'd done the previous days and you had Sergio on the ropes after you missed the three-footer on the previous hole? ANTHONY KIM: Don't hit it right (laughter). Like I said, I had a different attitude. I was free-wheeling on Sunday. Paul Azinger said something very important that stuck with me through the whole day. He said, "You have nothing to lose. Just go out there, play your game. You have a lot of game, so just go out there and let the world see it." In my mind, that's what I thought on most of my golf shots. I won't say every golf shot, but most of my golf shots. And on that tee shot, you're right, I did hit the ball in the woods or in the hazard three days. That definitely crept in there. Those trees were starting to come in (laughter). But at the same time I said, Just make a good, solid swing. Don't worry about it. If it goes in the trees, figure a way to make par. I made one of the best swings I made all day on that tee, and it obviously put me in a good position. Made birdie on that hole and started it rolling. Q. What did Sergio say to you after you beat him? ANTHONY KIM: He said, "You played awesome; you deserve it." I don't really remember. I was running off the green. Q. I thought he said "Where are you going?" ANTHONY KIM: He did say, "Do you want to keep playing more?" I still thought we had some more holes to go (laughter). That was because Sergio is a good player, and I didn't want to not focus on every golf shot. I didn't even know what hole we were on. Q. You were doing that in-the-moment thing you've been preaching, weren't you? ANTHONY KIM: Exactly. What's important now. Q. What does golf history and players like Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen mean to a young player like you? ANTHONY KIM: I don't really know too much about them. I know they have some golf clubs (laughter). But to me, I didn't really watch that much golf and didn't follow that much golf. That's no disrespect to anybody that I maybe am not so familiar with. But the guys I grew up watching I'm playing with right now. They're Tiger, they're Phil, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh. I'm playing with all these guys. I never really got to watch Jack Nicklaus play golf. I'm not somebody who likes to go watch golf on TV. I mean, if I'm about to take a nap that is probably what I'm going to turn on (laughter). I mean, I like watching basketball, football, and comedies. I don't know too much about it (smiling). Q. As far as the FedExCup goes, it would appear Vijay has got this thing all locked up. Does that take away from the excitement or the thrill of playing here this week? ANTHONY KIM: Well, obviously there's 29 other guys here, and they'd like the opportunity to win the FedExCup. But Vijay has played some tremendous golf, and obviously the points are structured the way we don't have a chance. At the same time, we're still playing to win this golf tournament, and wherever you finish on the FedExCup, whether it's second or 30th, at this point it doesn't really matter. Yeah, you still can win a lot of money, which is something that's important, don't get me wrong; but at the same time, everyone is out here to win this golf tournament. If you can't win the trophy, it really doesn't matter how high you finish up. Nobody really remembers that guy. Nobody remembers the guy that finished second or third in the FedExCup in 2008. Vijay is going to be remembered as the FedExCup champ, so we're just trying to win this golf tournament and finish as high up as we can. Q. Sergio whacked it down in that hazard, I want to say on the 6th hole in your match on Sunday. 7th? 6th? Almost all of you guys' conversation was picked up by the NBC cameras. You looked after you left that area as though you were sort of rolling your eyes and throwing your hands up. Did you think he was kind of taking advantage of the rules and throwing a little Seve on you trying to get a better drop, or what was your mindset when you walked in there and heard John Paramor's foreign accent and that he was going to give Sergio the drop? You know who Seve is, right? ANTHONY KIM: I haven't watched him play golf, but I've heard his name (laughter). You know, Sergio and I are good friends. He's always somebody who's followed the rules. You never hear anything bad about Sergio as far as trying to take advantage of the rules. You never hear that. Sergio is a good friend of mine. I wouldn't expect him to do that. There's many situations for every player where you can take advantage of a ruling, and I've done that. You watch it on TV every week; guys, if they're on the cart path or whatever, you try to -- the rules are there to help you, as well. So I understood what he was doing. You know, we're bound by the rules to just follow what the referee says. Whatever he says I was going to go with. I know if that was the way he was going to play the shot, he deserved the drop. That's all I can say about that. Q. You sort of raised that question, he's got to hit it that way? But of course when he gets the drop he's under no obligation to hit it that direction. ANTHONY KIM: Right. And right there, if that was the way he was going to hit the shot, that was an absolutely correct ruling and he should have gotten a drop and been able to, if the ball was in a good enough lie, advance it towards the green. Q. I have to ask, yes or no, has anyone told you that you sound a bit like Tiger Woods? ANTHONY KIM: No, nobody has ever said that (laughter). Q. Listen to yourself and listen to a tape of Tiger. There's a similarity there. Serious question. Tiger hasn't played since June. What's it like to be out there on the TOUR without the No. 1 player chasing you down trying to get a win? ANTHONY KIM: I don't think he's chasing me down (laughter). Q. Well, if you were in the lead, you know he's around somewhere. ANTHONY KIM: Right. Q. What's it feel like to not chase him? ANTHONY KIM: Well, right now is a great time for my game to really start getting better. I'm not just worrying about my score, but working on little parts of my game that are going to get me to a place where when he does come back that I'm going to have a better opportunity to contend in more golf tournaments that he's winning every week, and that's a goal of mine for next year. I've already figured out a couple key points in my game and some flaws that I need to get better for next year. I'm already planning that out, starting to figure that out. Obviously there's less of a buzz when Tiger is not in the field. Wherever he goes there's something about him that people are drawn to. Obviously winning as many tournaments as he does, it's hard not having him around and create the same buzz. But I think there's some younger guys who are really stepping up and winning some golf tournaments and are going to have the opportunity to play some golf against him and maybe contend in some more golf tournaments. Q. Along those same lines, there were several players who said after yesterday that you were the, quote-unquote, Tiger Woods of this Ryder Cup. There have been plenty of players who have come out and said, I'm going to go after the No. 1 ranking. Come hell or high water, that's the goal. Are you one of those guys that wants to knock Tiger Woods off that pedestal? ANTHONY KIM: Nobody is going to knock Tiger off anywhere. It's a given. He's staying there until somebody starts giving him more of a challenge on a week-to-week basis, and that is my goal. I told my best friend last night, I said, "I'm not there right now." That doesn't mean if I tee it up against him right now that -- well, right now I'd have a pretty good chance (laughter). If I teed it up against him that I wouldn't be going out there with the mindset that I'm going to win this golf tournament. But on a week-to-week basis he's proven that he's just going to beat you, and I'm trying to get my game ready. This gives me an opportunity to know what I need to work on for next year to be ready when he comes back, and I'd love to give him more of a challenge than I did before. Q. Curious, where are you in the points right now for FedEx? Fifth? Sixth? ANTHONY KIM: Sixth, but not counting. Q. That's probably a million bucks or so in bonus money. Have you discussed whether Eric gets a piece of that, and how are the other guys divvying up bonus money? They get paid week to week to week, and this is kind of an extra thing, or has that occurred to you yet? ANTHONY KIM: I let my financial guy over there at Merrill Lynch handle all that stuff. I try to stay out of it. That's what I've done this year the best is not worry about anything but golf, let my friends and people that work for me take care of -- my buddy back there, Panda, is taking care of all the stuff I need do as far as tickets and stuff like that this week. He's going to be out here with me now, and I'm trying to eliminate all the other distractions. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Anthony Kim, thank you. Good luck this week. End of FastScripts |
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