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BUICK INVITATIONALFebruary 6, 2009John RollinsSAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA MARK WILLIAMS: Welcome to the interview room. Pretty stunning round today. Just talk us through the round today a little bit and just what your expectation was before the day started knowing you were playing on a more difficult golf course. JOHN ROLLINS: Yeah, I mean, starting the day, the rough was thick and was going to be wet from the rain, so you knew it was going to be tough if you hit it in the rough. You really come out and I'd say mentally think even par is a good round. If you manage to shoot a couple under par, that's great. Just came out and made some putts, made a couple long ones that you don't really expect to make, and just kind of built on that as the round progressed. I started to hit the ball a little bit better and continued to make the putts and got out of there with 8-under. MARK WILLIAMS: I know you've shot lower, but how would you rate this round? JOHN ROLLINS: You know, if it was in the U.S. Open last year, it would have been the No. 1 round (laughter). You know, it's high up there for sure. It's a really tough golf course even now. But I have shot lower, made lower scores, but I would say for sure top ten -- one of the top ten rounds I've played. Q. How often do guys play the South Course and say they got out of there with an 8-under? JOHN ROLLINS: Well, I don't guess very often. It was just one of those days. Like I said, I made putts, the greens actually rolled pretty well, and just -- you know, I kind of just kept going one shot at a time, didn't really get ahead of myself and just kept trying to hit good golf shots. When I hit a good shot I tried to make the putt and move on from there. You know, I just felt pretty calm out there today and was -- like I said, it doesn't happen real often you can say I got out of the South Course with an 8-under, but today everything kind of worked out well for me. Q. Your record here in this tournament, it's been almost all or nothing. You've had a couple of Top 10s and a slew of MC Hammers. Do you have any theories on that? This week again would be another one that looked like it was more towards a Top 10. JOHN ROLLINS: Yeah, I like this place. Like I said, it's either kind of all or nothing for me here. I just like the way the golf course sets up. A lot of the tee shots, they fit my eye and the way I like to shape the ball. You know coming in here that typically the scores aren't going to be really low, and I like that kind of golf. I like courses where you don't have to go out and shoot 25- and 30-under par. I like it to where it's a premium on hitting the ball in the fairway. You know, if you get out and shoot a couple under par, then you've played a good round of golf, and that's what the South Course gives you here. Other than just fitting my eye and being comfortable with what the golf course is, I just enjoy playing here. Q. Did you have any idea what the course record was when you were out there, and any thoughts about that? And then also, can you tell us about the last hole? JOHN ROLLINS: I did not know the course record. I was just told that I guess Tiger holds the course record at 9-under or something like that. Q. Shocking, huh? JOHN ROLLINS: I would hate to take anything away from Tiger, so I figured I'd better make bogey, not birdie (laughter). 9 is a long par-5 today. It's back into the wind. It's a tough tee shot. If you miss the fairway, that's basically -- you're handcuffed, and that's what I did. You know, I was able to hack a 6-iron down the fairway but still had 200 yards for my third shot, and again, that's not an easy shot going in there on a par-5, having 200 yards for your third shot into the wind. I tried to keep a shot down, was kind of in-between yardages for me, and felt that the other club was going to be too much. I didn't want to hit it over the green but didn't want to hit it in the front bunker, either. I hit a pretty good bunker shot, just unfortunately hit probably my first putt of the day from about five feet to save par and pulled it a little bit to miss. MARK WILLIAMS: You looked a little shocked when it missed. Did that surprise you? JOHN ROLLINS: Yeah, I was a little surprised that it rolled that far. It felt like it was not going to be that fast. It was only about five, five and a half feet, and I didn't feel like I hit it that hard. Who knows, it gets on top of this poa annua at times and it can kind of get away from you. The greens, I'm sure if they stay the way they are, you're going to have to be careful. You've got to pay attention to how the greens are and what they're doing. Q. What did you hit on the third shot? JOHN ROLLINS: I tried to hit a 5-iron, flight a 5-iron down, even just to get it a couple yards on the front of the green I would have been happy with, to figure I got out of jail and got on the green and maybe two-putt and get out of there. But it wasn't to be, and we made a 6, and we'll move on for tomorrow. Q. How important is it for you to take advantage of the position you're in tomorrow and Sunday? JOHN ROLLINS: I think it's important for anybody that's in this position. I mean, I've got a chance going into the weekend, which is why we play the first two rounds. That's all we're trying to do is get ourselves in position. It's a lot of golf. This golf course is not as easy as it can give them up, but even though I shot 8-under today, I've still got to come out tomorrow and hit a lot of good golf shots, hit a lot of good putts to manage to get a decent round out of it tomorrow and hopefully get myself in contention for Sunday. Q. I know it was over a year ago, but can you take me back to the weight loss and how much you lost, and did you have to work your swing into your new body? JOHN ROLLINS: Yeah, I came into the season last year, lost probably 35 to 40 pounds. You know, I didn't really anticipate losing that much weight. I wanted to lose some, but it just happened that I lost that amount of weight. I do think that it had an impact on my game last year. Last year was a slow year, very inconsistent year for me, and I think that, yes, it took me a while to sort of figure out what my body was doing. I had just different motions and different misses that I was unaccustomed to having. It was a transition year is I guess the way that my wife and I kind of treated it. We unfortunately had to accept what was happening and just say it was a transition year, let's go on it for next year and see what happens. I mean, it's still nice to know that you made over a million dollars not really playing that well. But it was a lot different than in the years past. Q. Do you still have the same weight or have you added a little bit? JOHN ROLLINS: No, I'm maybe a couple pounds heavier than the end of the season last year, but nothing -- right now I'm about where I wanted to be before I started to lose the weight. I'm about at my goal that I wanted to achieve. I just got a little below that, a little quicker than I anticipated for last year. But now I'm pretty much where I want to be. Q. What are the benefits of the weight loss now? JOHN ROLLINS: I think it's just -- it helps your energy. I'm not as tired after rounds. Before I felt like at the end of a round, like especially today, maybe a long, tough day, that I would just be kind of wiped and I'd be ready to go and go back to the hotel, whatever, get dinner and go to bed. Now I know I've got to practice. I feel fine. I'll go work out, do all those types of things, and now I feel like I have the energy to hold my stamina through the round as well as to be able to work on my game after the round. Q. What's your weight now? JOHN ROLLINS: Come on, you don't ask somebody their weight, do you? I'm just kidding. I'm like 198 right now. Q. You won two and a half million bucks or whatever and were like Top 30 and decided you needed to dump weight. That's kind of -- coming off of a career year basically, and that's a pretty significant decision. What prompted it, and what did you do to cut the weight? JOHN ROLLINS: Well, it was a health thing. I mean, the longevity of the career. I figured it wasn't going to hurt. You know, I wasn't old by any means, but I figured to play out here longer and to be in better shape and be healthier was something that was going to benefit me down the road. You know, to lose the weight I actually did Weight Watchers. I did that. It was great. I think it helped me lose the weight fairly easily. It was much easier than I anticipated it being, but it worked really well for me. Now I'm back to just eating my normal cheeseburgers and pizzas and stuff like that. Q. Do you ever run into Camilo Villegas in the workout room, and who works out more, you or him? JOHN ROLLINS: Well, obviously him. I mean, he's in great shape. You know, I don't usually see him that much. I don't know if he maybe does things at his hotel gym or wherever he is. But you'll see the guys in the trailers from time to time, but it's really all on everybody's schedule. Some guys like to go way early before rounds, some guys like to go closer to the round. It just depends on a guy's schedule. Q. You've played the South Course enough to know how tough it can be, and having seen Camilo finish well ahead of you at the number he did, were you a sill bit pleased or surprised to have made it into a one-shot margin? JOHN ROLLINS: Yeah, when I saw he was at 11-under, I was just basically trying to get myself in position to be in one of the last couple groups and at least be right there in the middle of the golf tournament going into the weekend. I really wasn't out there saying, okay, I need to get to 11, because the South Course is so difficult it's hard to do that. It just to happened that things started going in and I started making birdies and holing out a 9-iron, and next thing you know, bang, here we are. So it is nice to catch him or feel like you're -- I'm only one back versus six back; what a difference that could be come Sunday. Q. Where did you hole the 9-iron? JOHN ROLLINS: No. 5. I think we had about 123. It was a little bit into the wind, and I just kind of choked a 9-iron down and actually hit it just past the hole and it just kind of spun back off the slope and in the hole. Q. Off the topic a little bit, I'm wondering what you took out of that meeting the other day where they showed you the Arnold Palmer video and all that. I know you were here and it was something you attended. JOHN ROLLINS: Yeah, I thought it was good. Obviously Arnold has been around. He's been an ambassador for the game for a long time, and still is. A great role model even to myself, growing up and watching golf, learning how to play golf watching Arnold Palmer and Nicklaus and these guys playing golf. For me it just kind of hit home a little bit that we do need to maybe take the pro-ams a little more seriously with our groups. You never really know who you're playing with. Like he said, CEO of a certain company that's given up so many millions of dollars for us to go out and play a game that we love. A lot of times we can get out there and take a lot of things for granted. You know, I hope that everybody else when they saw that message from him will understand that and realize, you know, we do need to enjoy what we've got. We need to cherish what we've got and take care of it, support the TOUR, like he was saying, and really take care of the PGA TOUR brand. Q. Did the weather affect you at all today? And if so, how? JOHN ROLLINS: Well, I think the weather helped soften the greens. I think if we didn't get the rain, the golf course still would have been -- not that it's easy by any means, but it still would have been very difficult because the greens were very firm and fast early in the week, and now that the rains have come in, they've softened the greens up, so now some of the pins that have been a little more hidden may be exposed a little bit now. If you're hitting the ball in the fairway you can attack a little bit more than if the greens were firmer. Other than that, that's really the only change that I would see. MARK WILLIAMS: Thank you for coming in. We appreciate your time, and all the best the rest of the weekend. End of FastScripts |
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