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GINN SUR MER CLASSICNovember 2, 2008Ryan PalmerPALM COAST, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Ryan Palmer to the interview room. Ryan shot a 7-under 281 today at the Ginn sur Mer Classic. It's his second TOUR win. His first came in 2004 at the Disney event. We're going to have Ryan start off with some general comments, then we'll take questions from the floor. RYAN PALMER: Unbelievable. What a feeling. What a day. What a week. What a way to cap off a rough year and a half. It's been almost two years now. But today was no exception, the last three days, I just tried to keep the same mentality, the same focus, the same rhythm, the same attitude, and just keep playing like I've been playing. I never got aggressive. I played smart. I played aggressive when I needed to. I just kept grinding today. Having to come and wait, it wasn't what I wanted to do, but it's the kind of way it goes with the weather. Today I just played steady. I came down to 10, 11, had the mishap on 10 with that ball moving and making a double on 11. Kept focused. Knew I was going to make a couple birdies coming in. Just didn't let it get me down and just kept grinding and grinding. And I did my putting drill last night. And it paid off. Just what a week. Q. Ryan, talk a little bit about what happened on No. 10 first. And, then, second, also talk about what happened on No. 18. Yesterday you went for it in 2 or at least hit the driver off the deck. Today you lay open, end up getting into position to make the birdie. Did you do that because of what happened yesterday, or if it was just difference in where you were on the fairway and so forth? RYAN PALMER: 10, I actually hit a great shot in there with a 7-iron, probably 25, 30 feet. My routine, I stowed my putter with my right hand. Didn't change my stance or anything. Then I was about to take my stance, I took the putter away, and I stood up. As I stood up, I saw the ball wiggle. It just took a half roll. With the rules, once you stow a putter, it doesn't matter whether you wait two seconds or ten minutes, it's still a penalty. It's one of the mishaps in golf. One of the unfortunates instances. I just told myself, that's fine, I have a one-shot lead. I kind of laugh. I told myself now I'll win by one less. Q. Was it simply a matter of the wind moving the ball? RYAN PALMER: Yeah, it was the wind. Because it started getting a little gusty there. It's part of when you're playing on fast, firm greens, the wind's blowing, you're going to have some things like that happen. Up on 11, made double. But coming into 18, I got up there and I hit a better drive than I did yesterday. I had 248 to the front. And as soon as I got there I told Jerry Fultz, I said, "I bombed it. I hit it good." I got up there and was thinking 3-wood. I was watching Vaughn Taylor putt. And I expected him to make a 12-footer as good as a putter as he is. When he missed, I needed -- I thought about going for it. But James kept asking me, "What do you think?" I said, "Let's talk about it. We'll talk about it." And we discussed it. I said, "Let's just put the putter in my hand." We both agreed. I'm putting well. Let's just put it down the fairway. All I gotta do is get the putter in my hand. I had no doubt. I had the confidence in the world that I was going to make the putt wherever I had it. Had a great lob wedge about 10, 12 feet. Funny, halfway through that putt, it bounced and still stayed in the center right part of the cup. But I just focused on the drill I did last night and got it over it. And what a way to win a golf tournament. Q. I noticed about halfway into the putt you started celebrating then. You knew it was in, even though you said it bounced? RYAN PALMER: It hit that bounce. I thought I missed it for a split second. When I got about a foot away, I saw it, seen it catch the right edge. And I just let loose. Q. Last time you won was 2004. This time you won, you came off the green, there was a little girl waiting jump into your arms. RYAN PALMER: Little boy. Has a lot of hair. Q. Anyway, how special is that to be able to celebrate that with your family? RYAN PALMER: You think about that every time, wanting to win with your family there. Jennifer was there in '04. Of course, I had to sit around for an hour to wait and see what happens. But to be in the last few groups and to have, not only my wife, but Mason, my 21-month-old boy, that says it all. And he puts the biggest smile on my face, every morning, every day. And it's something you dream about is being able to walk off the green and have your family there to hug you when you're winning a golf tournament. And that means more than winning, just have that happen at that moment. Q. Ryan, in retrospect, was having the rain delay after what happened on 10 and 11 beneficial? Or during the rain delay did you worry that you might dwell on what happened a little bit too much and carry it back, three hours in there? So what was going on in there in your head, and maybe whoever you were talking to at the time, like your caddie? RYAN PALMER: Actually, it didn't bother me anymore, because I had gotten over it. I hit a good wedge on 12. Putt 20 feet. 2-putt for par. And then hit two good shots on 13 and hit a great bunker shot for tap-in birdie. It had already flown by. I didn't even think about it. Got in the top of the lead birding 13. Bombed the drive on 14. I really wanted to hit that second shot on 14 because I had a 9-iron in my hand, ready to hit it. When we came back out this evening, ended up hitting an 8-iron to the back of the green. The weather delay didn't really affect me. I was chitchatting with a bunch of people walking around, enjoying the time. I was in contention. Had a lot of golf to be played, and I had no doubt that I was going to have a chance to win. Q. Given the situation that there was very few people there at 18 when you won, the long day, rain delay, wasn't a ton of people here to begin with, does that matter? Do you get so focused in your world and what you're doing that you wouldn't care if there was nobody at all out there when you won a tournament? Does it matter to you that there wasn't a big profile tournament, a ton of people around the 18? That just doesn't matter at all in the final? RYAN PALMER: I was still shaking and nervous. You know, it's too bad for this golf tournament and for this town and for Ginn not to have the crowds because of the weather. That's unfortunate. But you can't fight mother nature. But people that are out there, they are obviously true fans and love the game of golf. And I was still anxious and nervous. If I wasn't nervous, I would be lying. But doesn't matter if there's 20,000 people or 10,000 people or 5,000 or 500. It's still a putt to win a PGA TOUR event. Q. You said that after they dinged you for the one-shot penalty, you just laughed and told yourself, "Okay, I'll win by one fewer." Is that because you were playing so well and feeling good about your chances right there? Because I know most of us would have been using hyphenated words and taking the Lord's name in vain and looking for something to kick at that point if that had happened to us. You seemed to have shrugged it off fairly easily. RYAN PALMER: I did. I went into the putt like I had to make a putt for par. I walked off the golf course. I said, "JAMES, okay, we'll just make bogey. No big deal." It's like hitting into the bunker not getting up and down. And I had that confidence. The way I was driving the ball, the way I was hitting my irons and putting the ball, I had the confidence. I'm just one shot ahead. Not too worried about it. We're going to make a few more birdies, and then it won't be a big deal. And it was unfortunate I hit that drive on 11. I felt good on the tee ball. Actually thought I put a pretty good swing on it trying to hold it against the wind, just turned it over too much to the left. Things like that happen in this game. The best thing you can do is try to overcome it the best way you can. And the rhythm I took to this week, and I took it last week, was what Justin Leonard told Harris Frasier and Harris told me one day back at home. He asked Justin, "How do you handle your rhythm?" He mentioned, "You mean golf swing." Harrison said, "The rhythm in your golf swing?" Justin said, "No, the rhythm in your walk. How is your rhythm?" And I never thought about that. Always talk about your tempo and your swing, your tempo and your putting. But I focussed so much last week and this week on my rhythm, and that was the pace that I was walking. Taking my club out of the bag, how slow, how fast I was doing it. And I just focused on that. And it kept me calm and loose and just determined to hit shots perfectly. Q. Three hour and five hour rain delay, waiting in the car? RYAN PALMER: I was in the car listening to the Cowboys game a little bit. Got to get my Cowboys in there. But it wasn't very long. But I just focused on that rhythm and timing and just staying patient and not worrying about the outcome. I kept getting ahead of myself. I always get ahead of myself thinking what am I going to say in my interview, what am I going to say on TV? How will I react if I win this golf tournament? Every time I kept thinking about it, no, no, shake it off. This is the main shot. I kept grinding it in my head. It paid off. It really kept me in the present. Q. (Question off microphone)? RYAN PALMER: Was it bad? Q. I don't think it will make many highlight reels. RYAN PALMER: We'll leave it to the -- Q. Is that the first time you've had a ball move on you that you've been called a penalty for? RYAN PALMER: No. Q. Roughly how many times? RYAN PALMER: A couple. Nothing that really stands out. Nothing when I'm in the heat of a battle like this, trying to win a golf tournament. It's never been on the 10th hole on the back nine on a Sunday. Q. I know this story gets beat to death whenever it happens at a golf tournament about calling a penalty on yourself like that. But is it just something, when it happens and you see it, is it just automatic, you say, "Okay, I gotta tell somebody," or does it -- RYAN PALMER: Deep down -- Q. Do you stop for a second and say "I wonder if anybody saw that"? RYAN PALMER: Deep down you say those words you're talking about in your mind. But you just kind of step back. And Ken was over there. I looked up at Ken and I said, "Obviously you saw that move?" He goes, "Yeah." We've got to discuss -- I thought maybe there was something in the rules saying if you backed off and maybe you waited and then it moved or something there. But he said, "Once you stow the club, that's it." And I think it showed a lot for me to hang in there and to make that putt on 18 with a little bounce in the middle of, it just kind of showed -- it was weird. It was hard to see it because of the darkness. But it's karma. You have that bad break on 10; you have a good break on 18. Q. One PGA TOUR victory kind of proves something. What does two of them prove? RYAN PALMER: This one -- Q. Does it validate the first one and more or less prove that that might not have been just a -- although a 62 in a final round, not a coincidence. Does it mean anything different than the first one? RYAN PALMER: I'll say how much more this one means to me. I shot 62 on Sunday to win in Disney. I mean, that's one of those days you're unstoppable. And I sat around for an hour and a half waiting to see if I was going to win it or not. This proved to me that I can play in any kind of condition, under any kind of circumstance, with the wind all week, with the weather today, with the penalty on 10. But this one means more to me because of what I've been through the last year and a half, two years. Last year it wasn't great. It was a rough year. I struggled with trying to decide whether to switch clubs or not. My wife had some health issues during the FedEx, which I was unable to play. Fortunately she's very healthy now. And we just had a baby in January. And I was doing things personally that just wasn't doing myself any good, from a personal and from my family's standpoint. I came into this year saying I'm going to work hard and focus and change things in my life. And I worked with Neil Wilkins in Houston forever. He's like a brother to me. Love him to death. It was time for me to move on and try to find something to get me fired up again. And Randy Smith, who I worked with a little bit last year, but back in March I said -- I called Randy and said "I'm ready to go full time with you. Let's get this going." And I worked harder this year than I ever have in my career, at tournaments at home, and the time I've spent on putting greens with the new drill I started doing last year and the grinding on the range, with Randy, out here with James. Just told myself it was going to pay off one day. I was tired of not seeing the results. Sure you've seen my stats. Leading in birdies. Second on putting on TOUR. 23 total driving. I mean, the stats show I should be making a couple million dollars. One guy said, "You should be at a TOUR championship with these stats." But that's frustrating when you don't get those results when you know you're playing well. And this just proves the hard work finally came and paid off. Q. Do you think now that you moved so far up in the money stats you're going to be able to play a full season next year and so forth, that might make it a little more possible to do that and be able to relax and just play and let those stats kind of speak for themselves? RYAN PALMER: No doubt. Now I've got two years' exemption, which is great. But I think I'll be close to the top 70, which would be nice. Get into the invitationals, which I'm in the Colonial, being its my home course. Finished 15th which got me in there automatically. But I don't know what I've got to do to finish top 30, I've probably got to win to get into the top 30 which gets you in the Open in the Masters. But I'll tell you what, this just gets me ready to go out next year. And now it's time to go out and maybe try to win again, win twice next year. Even trying to play my way onto the President's Cup. That's going to be the goal I can set for myself, because now I can focus this winter on getting better than what I am now. Next week's going to be an unbelievable week. I told my parents, I said, "I'm going to make next week relaxing for us." And now we get to go have fun at Disney, play golf with Jason Bowen, one of my closest friends on TOUR. Get to play the tournament and enjoy the week. And I've got a big weekend in two weeks in San Antonio. That's going to be quite a party, I think. Q. Pretty nice day, when you go out to practice, when you win a tournament like this and you show up the next week and everybody greets you on the putting green, driving range, whatever, that's pretty special, too, isn't it? RYAN PALMER: It is. When your peers come up to you and you know you've beat some of the best players in the world they look at you and say, when they congratulate you, it feels unbelievable. Q. Cameron, when he showed up this week -- RYAN PALMER: Guys like us that's been struggling, trying to keep our card, and it's funny because I think somebody said everybody that's won this fall series has been outside the top 125. Somebody said I need to keep that going. Well, here we are. But, no, it's great when you get to go next week and you get to soak it up, walk with your head high for a change. You don't get to do it very often. And it's fun to do. Q. Can you refresh my memory, I don't remember, I remember reading a little something about it last year, but what was the medical issue with your wife? I know she had some surgery, was laid up for a while and you had to be, or was it pregnancy-related or what was the thrust of the -- RYAN PALMER: Mason was born in January. But it came prior to the first FedEx and the Barclays, which I qualified for. They found a mass in her colon area. She had to have half of the colon removed. Noncancerous. They took half the colon, her appendix. Laid her up in the hospital about five days. There was no reason for me to be at a golf tournament, for sure, when she's going through that. Then she had some hernia surgery earlier in the year, which was minor. But it was a pretty major surgery because they said if her appendix was massive rupture, it could have been pretty serious. So fortunately she got through that and she's healthy. We're going to work on trying to have a baby this November or December. So things are definitely lining up with ourselves and we're just looking forward. Q. We know what you'll be doing spending this off season. RYAN PALMER: Exactly. (Laughter) I know she told me we can't be pregnant at the Cal Invitational, that's a fun tournament. And she can't let loose there if she's pregnant. Q. After you made your birdie putt, had another group coming in, you had Letzig that had a chance to birdie there, did you go somewhere and watch that, or did you know your work was done and there was nothing you could do? RYAN PALMER: I was down on the green. I was just amazed. Fighting back the tears. But James is unbelievable. He said, "Let's just get ready for the playoff." It was great. We hugged all that. He said, "Now let's just get ready for the playoff. Get our minds focused for playoff." Michael was in the fairway, I believe, with a short wedge in his hands. He could have very easily hit it closed, holed out, who knows. Got up to the clubhouse. Fortunately it was a long drive. By the time I found my card and the stress over watching it, so as I was going to watch it, I started hearing James, James and Jerry Fultz, "You're good, Ryan, you're good." And then I just kind of took a few minutes to myself and let it sink in. Q. What's your caddie's last name? RYAN PALMER: Edmondson, E-d-m-o-n-d-s-o-n. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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