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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO-AMFebruary 12, 2009Robert GarrigusPEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA MARK STEVENS: We welcome Robert Garrigus to the interview room at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with a -7 today and currently sharing the lead with someone that is not finished yet. Robert, if you'd go ahead and talk about your round today, especially your finish. You started on the back and had a really good finish on your last three holes. If you'd go into that and then we'll take questions. ROBERT GARRIGUS: Yeah, the day started off okay. I hit a good tee shot and then hit it in the bunker and made like a 12-footer for par. Days like that you start out and you make a long putt for par, you get a good up-and-down on the first hole, it kind of gets you going. Then I birdied the next hole and kind of spattered some birdies in between there. I got to the front and everything slowed down. We played the front nine in two and a half and the back in three and a half, so it was kind of hard to keep the rhythm going. And then on 7, the par-5, I hit 5-iron to short right about 50 feet and then made it for eagle, and then the next two holes I hit two good shots on each hole and made birdie. It was kind of nice to finish with a blaze there, and Brett Quigley did the same thing, he finished 3-3-3, so it was kind of nice to finish that way. Hopefully we keep going. Q. Did Brett hit 5-iron on 7? ROBERT GARRIGUS: No, he hit 3-wood, and he kind of was laughing at the fact that I hit it 40 yards by him. We both made the same score, and that's how it is out here. You don't count your chickens before you're in the hen (sic). It's one of those deals where you're trying to shoot a score, but it was so wet out there today, the greens were bumpy a little bit towards the end there. But it's all about having fun with the ams, too. They're out there to watch you play, and it's kind of fun to give them what they came to see. It was pretty cool today. Q. You're a big hitter out there. Did that feel like a real advantage out there today with everything being kind of damp? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Absolutely. I look forward to golf courses playing long because if I'm putting well, I'm hitting short irons in when other guys aren't. I hit it well today. It was a good day for ball-striking. I think I only missed a couple greens, the first one and I think No. 6 or something like that. No, I look forward to golf courses playing long. That's my game, and I don't like to play the courses where I have to hit 2-iron on every hole because I can't take advantage of my length. But today I was kind of licking my chops because I knew it was going to be playing long. Q. How significant is it that your 65 was at Spyglass? That's obviously usually the hardest of the three. ROBERT GARRIGUS: Absolutely. I knew I could play well there, and that's where I'd like to shoot a good number because Pebble you can scrape it around and shoot a couple, 3-under. If you scrape it around at Spyglass you're not going to shoot 3- or 4-under. Poppy is going to be really wet tomorrow morning. I think I'm the first tee time. I'm not quite sure. But luckily we're going to get the greens good for nine holes. That's another advantage. There's not going to be too many spike marks or too many bumps. I'm looking forward -- I like this tournament, too. It's fun. I grew up in the northwest, so I kind of grew up in this kind of weather. It's kind of cold and damp, and it's nice to get off to a good start. That's a nice golf course we played today, and I finished strong, which was nice. Q. I don't know if you can answer this, but where does your length come from? ROBERT GARRIGUS: You know, a long time ago my grandpa -- I never really played golf. I had good hand-eye coordination, and I was a good pitcher when I was in high school. I threw it really fast. When I was 13 years old I was throwing it 85 miles an hour. We had it clocked, and I was planning to be a professional baseball player. I threw out my arm and broke my leg, and I went to golf. For some reason my grandpa just said, "Here's a driver." I hit balls on one leg for probably two months when I had a broken leg just to get the feel of things, and that helped me stay on my left side and get some kind of thing going. My grandpa gave me a triple extra stiff titanium shafted tiny Taylor Made Burner head and told me to swing as hard as I can until I'm 18, and don't worry about anything else. I was like, okay. I listened to him. Sure enough, I was hitting it over 300 yards when I was 15 years old. We've talked about technology and all the stuff now. Technology has actually hurt me to where everybody else is kind of catching up with me. I've hit it long my entire life, and I kind of tried to emulate my swing after Freddie. I'd watch tape of him swinging and try to get his impact position, and his hips are facing the target every time he hits a shot, or open to the target. His lag was huge, and I tried to emulate that. I think that's where it came from, really, just kind of that hand-eye coordination, just trying to be really in front of the ball before you make contact. Everybody has asked me how do I hit it that far, and that's probably the only explanation I can give them. Q. I don't know if it was Bubba or J.B. who said, "No way anyone hits it longer than I do when I really hit it." In kind of that smallish group of really pounders, is there any type of ego thing of who's actually the longest out here? ROBERT GARRIGUS: You know, I look at the stats. Absolutely it can't because sometimes we don't hit driver on those holes. We'll hit an iron or we'll hit a 3-wood. But I think Bubba hits it further than anybody out here. I haven't played with J.B. There's a kid coming up called Gary Woodland. He launches it. It's kind of an ego thing, but I really don't want to be known as the guy who hits it further. I want to be known for the guy who makes everything, because that's where the money is. If I hit it in the fairway and I make everything, I'm going to be in the Top 10 on the Money List, I'm going to be in the majors, I'm going to be up on top of everything. If I can keep it in the short grass and keep my head about me and have fun and make putts, I mean, that's all I'm looking forward because I've tried to hit it, say, oh, yeah, I hit this into there and nobody cares. "Wow, you hit it far. What did you make?" Q. What's the biggest "if" in that sequence you just gave, short grass, attitude, putts? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Putts. I feel like I have a great attitude on the golf course. I laugh about everything, regardless if I make an eagle or a double. You've got to laugh it off. And my putting has really come around. I'm very excited about putting with the new putter I got this year. I shot 25-under at the Bob Hope and have never broken 16- or 17-under par in a PGA TOUR event before, so I was excited about that. My short putts is where I usually have a hard time figuring out how hard to hit it because I've got a 28-inch putter, and I've been putting with that since I was 19 years old. You'd figure I would get used to it, but sometimes I get juiced up, sometimes I put more pressure on myself, but now I've stopped flipping it and everything is starting to roll in nice. Q. When is the last time you threw a baseball? Did you throw your arm out in one game, or was it just a cumulative thing where all of a sudden at the end of the season your arm was dead? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Yeah, at the end of the season my arm was toast. I played, I don't know, 20 games in our junior Babe Ruth League or whatever. I threw two no-hitters. I was going crazy. Nobody could catch my stuff. At the end of the year, in the last game we had to win, whatever, all the stuff, and I was pitching, and I felt like my arm wasn't there anymore, and I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't throw anymore. Q. Do you throw around now at all? ROBERT GARRIGUS: I do just to have fun. Every once in a while my boys will go out and we'll play catch or throw the football around. It's nothing serious. I can throw a golf ball over 100 yards, I know that. I've been bet many times to see if I can throw it over 100 yards. I usually win that bet. I do that every once in a while, just make sure I stretch my arm so I don't throw it out anymore because it's quite important out here. Q. After talking about the 350-yard drives, I'm curious now about the 28-inch putter. Was that a conventional putter when you were 19 and you hit a growth spurt? ROBERT GARRIGUS: No, when I was in junior college I missed so many short putts left, and I've found out recently it's because I'm left-eye dominant, and left-eye dominant aim left of the hole. But I had a 34-inch putter and I was all cramped up, and I felt so uncomfortable. My arms are long, and when I hang over the ball I need a 28-inch putter. That's just how it was because I had it fitted at a Slazenger fitting system. He fit me, and he said, "Hey, man, you need a 28-inch putter." I said, "Are you kidding me?" I had no idea what he was talking about. After I switched to that I finally made it on the Nationwide Tour that year. It was that quick, and I was making everything, making a lot of 10-, 20-foot putts. My short ones are still a little iffy, but through the years -- I'm 31 years old now and I've played 60, 70 events out here. It's not much, but I'm getting used to the pressure. I mean, there's no pressure like on Sunday or being in the final group. I mean, that's tough for me. I have to acknowledge that and just realize that it's fun and I've got to go from there. Q. I was going to ask you, have you been paired in competition I assume not with J.B. but with Bubba? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Yeah, Bubba and I have actually played three rounds together, two in San Diego and one in Phoenix. You know, I'm sure that was fun for the crowd. A lot of people don't realize I hit it as far because I don't look like I'm swinging hard. But Bubba lashes at it. It's fun for us to watch because he kills it. Q. Do you find you throttle yourself back and don't get too wrapped up in it? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Absolutely. I kind of get to a point where I'm swinging 90 percent, and I hit it further when I swing 90 percent because my ball takes off at the perfect trajectory with less spin, and when I swing 110 percent, it doesn't go as far as it does when I swing smooth. That's just me because I know Bubba can send it when he swings as hard as he can. He swings it 135 miles an hour. I can't get there; I can only get to about 128. But it's fun playing with those guys. You kind of flip them some crap here and there and have fun with them and call them names just because you get them one time. It's fun. Q. Who else was in that group, Skip Kendall? ROBERT GARRIGUS: No, it was John Rollins. He was hating it. He was really hating it. He walked onto the first tee, and he looked at both of us, and he's like, "Just take it easy on me today, guys." It's fun when you get paired with those guys. Q. Had you played any golf when your grandpa gave you those instructions or did you just fiddle with the game a little bit? ROBERT GARRIGUS: I fiddled with the game just a little bit, just enough to keep me interested in the summertime when I wasn't playing baseball or racing BMX bikes, or snowboarding in the winter was what I did in the wintertime. I really never did play golf competitively until I was 15. My first competitive round I shot 93 at Orenco Woods golf course in Hillsboro. I'll never forget it. I was so nervous on the first tee I topped it, and I was so embarrassed. I was like, wow, this is how it is. And then by the time I was 16 I shot 69. It took me a year to shoot in the 60s, and I shot 28 when I was 17, and by the time I was 18 I almost shot in the 50s. I exploded on the scene in my junior program in Oregon, which a lot of good golfers came out. I played against Quinney and Ben Crane and Jason Allred. We had some good golfers come out of there, so it was kind of nice to have something different to kind of tone me down a little bit. I was very wild when I was a kid, kind of a troublemaker. But it was nice to get into golf and kind of calm me down and realize I could do this for a living. Q. When did your grandpa have that conversation with you, when you were 13? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Yeah, 13 years old. He saw it in me. He knew what was going on because he saw my swing when I didn't play golf, and he was like, "Wow, you need to get into this," and I'm very glad I did. Q. How long did it take you to beat your grandpa? ROBERT GARRIGUS: It took me about a year. He was good. He was a good stick. He was shooting his age when he was 71 and 72. He's 96 now. He's still going. I got him a big 65-inch TV so he can see me now (laughter). Q. What's his name? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Chester, Chet Carpenter. He lives in Boise. Q. What town does he live in? ROBERT GARRIGUS: Eagle. Q. Were you depressed when the baseball dream that you referred to ended? ROBERT GARRIGUS: You know, absolutely. I aspired to be a professional baseball player. I knew I had the talent and I had the hand-eye coordination. But when I broke my leg and I threw out my arm, I was like, wow, what am I going to do now. I was a soccer player, as well, so I couldn't play soccer. I wasn't a very good basketball player. I couldn't jump but I could shoot. Yeah, I was disappointed. When my grandpa told me, "Hey, you've got to play golf, this is what you're meant to do," I was just kind of like, "All right, yeah, whatever." And by the time I got into playing and having fun and dealing with everything you have to deal with on the golf course, you never have to do that on the baseball field, and you can take your aggression out on a swing or a pitch or whatever. Now out here it took me so long to realize how to handle my emotions, and I still have a little bit of emotion on the golf course, but now it's pretty easy, because it took me about 15 years to realize I can't get mad and hit a good shot. We all struggle with that all the time. It's really hard out here when there's a lot of pressure on you, but I'm managing that well, and it's kind of nice to have my job. I get to play golf for a living, and everybody gets to watch me play, and it's kind of nice to be where I am. Q. How did you break your leg? ROBERT GARRIGUS: I broke it racing BMX bikes. I went up over like a 25-foot jump, came down and there was a puddle at the end of the jump and I set my foot down and snapped my ankle, right foot. When I have my pants up, when I have shorts on, you can tell the muscle difference between my right and left legs. It's kind of stupid looking. It's crazy, this one is skinnier than my left one. Everything healed right but the muscles in my legs -- I went to a personal trainer about eight, nine weeks ago, ten weeks ago, and started working out, and he told me that my left side was actually my strong side. I'm right-handed and I do everything right-handed, and my right side was my weak side, so we fixed that. We've been working out as much as I possibly can. That's helped, too. I started doing some fitness, and man, it's made a big difference with being in a position where your heart is beating all the time for an hour a day at 140 beats per minute, and you get on the golf course and now it doesn't seem like it's so crazy when you're coming down the stretch like today. I wasn't even -- I didn't feel nervous at all. I was just confident and going with it. So I think the working out has really helped me a lot. Q. What did you say you hit on that par-5? ROBERT GARRIGUS: I hit driver, 5-iron. Q. How far were you out? ROBERT GARRIGUS: I was like 210. Q. How far was the putt? ROBERT GARRIGUS: About 50 feet. Q. 8 and 9, go over the details of that. ROBERT GARRIGUS: 8, I hit 3-wood, 8-iron to about eight feet below the hole, rolled it, it was inside left about eight feet up the hill and made that. Then on 9, I hit driver, 8-iron. I could have hit 9 but it was a good idea to hit 8. I choked down on it, took the spin off of it and hit it to about 15 feet, 17 feet, and rolled that in, left to right uphill. MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot. End of FastScripts |
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