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THE HONDA CLASSICMarch 6, 2009Robert AllenbyPALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA JOHN BUSH: We would like to welcome Robert Allenby into the interview room. 2-under par 68, you mentioned not quite as on today with your ball-striking, but still tied for the lead. So if we could get some comments from you about your round today. ROBERT ALLENBY: I didn't play bad or anything like that. I probably just didn't hit it as close as I did yesterday. Yesterday I gave myself a lot more opportunities for birdie than I did today. A bit more scrambling sort of going on today. It was a little tricky. Different pin placements to yesterday obviously and a couple of tricky pins out there. So you've got to be aware of them, and I tried to really just, most importantly, just to play sort of conservative and try and hit it into the fat part of the green and just give myself a putt at it most of the time. So I just played smart golf. I knew I didn't have to be aggressive, and I know that if I shoot under par every day, it's going to be pretty close at the end of the week, after shooting 4-under yesterday. Look, only one blemish, which was on 17 with a 3-putt. You know, I was long range there. I actually hit a great 5-iron into 17, and I just got a gust of wind that came up about 10 or 15 yards short, or feet, probably, from where it was meant to finish. Left myself about a 40-footer straight up the hill. Left it probably seven or eight feet short. And then Boo, obviously we were not 100% sure on where he crossed the line or if he had crossed the line in the hazard down the right, and that probably took about 25 minutes for that rode your to happen, take place. And then obviously kind of just lost a little bit of feel for my stroke and missed the putt. But overall, I'm happy with the day. As I said, any time you shoot under par around this golf course, you're doing well. JOHN BUSH: Take us through the birdies, starting at No. 3. ROBERT ALLENBY: 3, that was just -- hit a drive. I just got caught up in the right rough, just off the fairway. I just played a 4-iron up there and then hit a wedge to about, I don't know, seven or eight feet. 7 I hit a 6-iron to eight feet. 16, actually I hit a good tee shot with a 3-wood. The wind took it a little bit left and kicked left. It wasn't in the trap, but I was kind of like nearly standing sort of one foot in and one foot out. Not really the ideal shot you want coming out of the thick rough there. Then you've got to go over the water when it's into off the right. I just smashed a 6-iron up to the left side of the green and chipped it in. The chip was probably 50, 60 feet. Q. You were close an awful lot of times last year; Memphis, I think playoff, was it? And Ginn, you're in the 18th fairway with a wedge in the fairway and birdie might have tied you at that moment. There was another Fall Series; Turning Stone. Is there a common thread there? ROBERT ALLENBY: About one or two shots (laughter). Q. Yeah, one or two shots. Yeah. I know you're putting an awful lot of pressure on yourself last fall to win for your personal circumstances. ROBERT ALLENBY: Obviously. Q. And the Aussie Masters, another case, you were right here all those times. ROBERT ALLENBY: Yeah, I think that's golf. It's such a fine line between winning and not winning. But I think the best way to look at it is I'm getting closer. Because if you look to the year prior to that, I didn't give myself as many chances to win. And prior to that, three years ago, I didn't give myself really any chances to win. So this is all a positive step, really. A lot of people look at it as a negative, but I look at it as a positive, because it just means that the things I'm working on, I'm getting better. And I know once I get over that line, it's off and running. Because then the confidence -- it's just a matter of believing in yourself and having the confidence to just stand up there and hit the shots, one after the other, under the gun. I'm getting there. I'm getting closer. I'm not disappointed. Last year was my best year on the TOUR, without winning. So, you know, you can only -- you have to accept whatever happens, and that's what I think I do really well, is I accept it. I'm not trying to stuff up or anything like that. I'm trying to hit good shots. But you know, sometimes you hit shots that you feel like would have been a good shot, but it wasn't a good shot. The Ginn tournament, the wedge, the sand iron that I hit into the 18th there, it was straight at it. And there was a thunderstorm above us; we had been sitting in a car for 25 minutes on the 18th fairway, and then trying to go up there and play the next shot, so you lose your rhythm and timing. I hit a shot that I thought was perfect at that moment, because I knew that at that particular time and that shot, I needed to land it past the flag, because everything was going to spin back, because it was into the wind. And I landed it a foot too far. And it cost me the tournament. But a foot shorter, it probably would have come all the way back to about two or three feet. I would have tapped it in for birdie and I could have been in a playoff, and with my playoff record, I might have won. So we could have looking at it completely different. But that's golf. You've got to accept it. There's always going to be good and there's always going to be bad. I'm very happy with the way I'm playing. I know my game is just getting better and better. I've been working on some really positive things with my putting and my chipping. And that part of my game is just getting stronger. It's just a matter of just staying patient and you know, just enjoying what I do. Right now, that's what I'm doing. I enjoy what I'm doing. Q. When you say that you accept it, is that instantaneous; does it take you an hour to accept it? ROBERT ALLENBY: About five seconds. If you had a stopwatch. There's just no point worrying about it, because then it affects the rest of your life as far as it affects -- it could affect the next hour, two, three, four, in decisions that you make. It's just pointless. It really is pointless. I've worked really hard the last couple of years with Peter Crone on stuff like this, and he's just got me to the point where it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Everyone is going to hit bad shots. Everyone is going to have things that go wrong in their life, whether it's on the golf course or off the golf course, and it's just a matter of accepting it. The thing is, there's also going to be a lot of good stuff, too. The less you worry about the bad stuff, there will be a lot more good stuff. That's where I am and that's where I'm at with myself. Q. This is sort of a follow to that. Geoff Ogilvy talked last week about how he used to be not very nice to himself on the golf course. Is that what you're getting to the point where you're just not beating yourself up? ROBERT ALLENBY: I'm not an animal like him. Q. He's reformed now, though. ROBERT ALLENBY: He's a reformed animal. I've played a lot of golf with Geoff, and obviously I'm a few years older than him. I've played a lot of golf with him as a junior, and yeah, he did used to beat himself up (laughing). I always said to him, I said, "The day that you stop beating yourself up, you'll be one of the greatest golfers in the world." And look, about what three years ago, he stopped beating himself up. I think it was probably four years ago, maybe, when he won Tucson, and then the U.S. Open, and the Match Plays and Doral. So he's got himself right where he needs to be. You know, we are all fighting ourselves. That's all we ever do. We all fight ourselves. We've all got these urges of putting ourselves down all the time. I think that just goes with being a professional athlete. We always strive for the best, and when it doesn't come off, you are always looking to blame someone else or blame yourself or whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, it just doesn't do anyone any good. More importantly, it doesn't do you any good by whinging and carrying on like a pork chop. Q. It's going back a ways, but when you were a kid, I was talking to a couple of guys, and they said you turned pro coming out of Australia and they were still obviously at that point, at fever pitch, they were looking for the next Sharky, and that you might have been the guy who have been anointed as the next one. Do you remember it that way, and what type of pressure and expectation did that putt on you, if at all, if it bothered you at all? Or maybe if it was flattering and you looked at it that way. ROBERT ALLENBY: It was definitely flattering. I kind of looked at it, and if I thought about it too much, then it would put a lot of pressure on me obviously. But I think obviously, I had a bit of a setback back in '96. '96, I was playing probably the best golf of my life. I won three times in the space of a couple of months in Europe, and I was -- my goal back then in '96 was to come over to America at the end of the season and go to the TOUR School and get my card and play '97 full-time. I had the confidence to do anything back then. Then I had the car accident in September of that year, and you know, it's funny. My neck and stuff like that, there's things that go wrong with me all the time, lower back, neck, wrists, and it all -- we are looking at everything and I see these physios and stuff. It all stems back to that stupid car accident. My wrists are really sore because I was hanging on the steering wheel and virtually snapped my wrists back pretty severely. I went through the wind screen, hit the steering wheel with my sternum, broke my sternum, and smashed my whole face up, my head from here to here (across) and came back into the car; whether that was the seatbelt that brought me back into the car, I don't know. So I have a problem with my mid-neck and the base of my neck that just keeps slipping out. But I never thought anything of it. I thought I was just common, day-to-day, being a golfer and my trainer, Vern, is like, I think that all stems back to that. So there's a lot of maintaining that I have to do and a lot of gym exercises that I have to do to try and keep myself in the right condition. So there's things that have happened, I guess in my career, that have stopped me a little bit from being the golfer that I know I can be and I know a lot of people know I can be, as well. But you know what, I still consider myself young. I'm only 37. But I see myself being able to play the same golf when I'm 53, 54 years of age, because I actually feel like I'm in great shape. I feel like I'm stronger now than I was when I was in my 20s. So definitely more mature and definitely I know a lot more about the game now, and mentally, I just think I'm getting better and better. I'm close, I know I'm very close to something very good, actually. Q. You talked eloquently about your mom yesterday, and today you're talking about letting go of bad things that happen on and off the course; do you find yourself thinking about your mom while you're on the course, and how do you let that go, or do you want to let it go? ROBERT ALLENBY: No, I think about her every five seconds. That's my mom. You know, that's someone that I loved more than anyone in the world. My mom and my dad and my kids, you know, they are blood. You know, it's hard. It's the hardest thing that I've ever had to deal with in life. I think about it when I'm out there. As soon as I get ahead of myself, I just hit myself; come on, you've got to pull yourself back in line here. It's too long of a way to go before the end of the tournament. You know, I know everyone out there has thoughts of all sorts of things, because it's just the way we are. We can be a little bit whacko sometimes. The thoughts about my mom, I'm trying to treat them as good thoughts. Yeah, sure, I miss here. But you know, that's life. Life's got to go on for me, and it's hard that she's not going to be there, but yeah, it's just one of those things. We all have to deal with it in life. It's the hardest thing you'll ever have to deal with, and you know, I just -- every day I just try and go out there and give it my best shot, whether it's good or bad. Q. And that's exactly what she had told you, probably many times, but most poignantly at the Australian Masters. ROBERT ALLENBY: Back at the Aussie Masters when she was in the golf cart there on about the 15th hole, 16th hole, she just said, "Look, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you win or lose. Just enjoy doing what you do." I can honestly say I do. I do enjoy it. JOHN BUSH: Robert, should be a fun weekend. Thanks for coming by. End of FastScripts |
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