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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 5, 2009Sergio GarciaPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome our defending champion Sergio Garcia here to the media center for THE PLAYERS Championship. Sitting here looking at the cover of the media guide, what's it like to return here with your picture on everything and come back to TPC Sawgrass as the defending champion? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it's great for me. Probably is not great for everybody else to look at. To have a chance of winning this championship last year, I think, was obviously the highest point in my career. It was something very, very special and something that I will always remember. This is definitely one of the championships that you always look forward to winning, and I was fortunate enough to do it last year. I'm looking forward to coming back and see if I can get some good things going on the course at a place where I've done well and see if I can get my season kind of started a little bit. Q. Do you look back last year where your game was, like right now what's missing? What did you have last year that you don't quite have right now? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, I think that there's obviously a couple of things missing. I obviously am not feeling 100 percent with my game at the moment and it shows. I'm just not having a great time on the course. I'm working on trying to change that and see -- I think this is a good place. It's a tough course, but it's a good place for me to hopefully turn around and start going in the right direction. Q. When you say -- is it just you don't feel like you want to be here or it's confidence? SERGIO GARCIA: A little bit of everything. It's one of those stages in your life, in your career, that you've got to get through, and sometimes it unfortunately happens. But it will go by and it will be fine. Q. It looked like you were using a putter last week that looked a lot like what Cabrera used at the Masters. It's kind of a belly putter but you don't anchor it in your belly, but it's got a long grip? SERGIO GARCIA: It's similar in a way, I guess. I saw his last week and I think it's a little bit different because he grips it from -- pretty much from the top. I grip it pretty much normal and kind of let a little bit of the putter stick out. And it's just pretty much to help me do what I tried to achieve or what Stan and I, we tried to achieve with the putter, which is kind of loading the club face instead of moving the grip. By the grip being a little longer it's harder for me to make the top part of the grip move, so I'm working with the club face instead of that. So that's usually what happens to me when I start putting badly. So I'm just trying to see if I can get some confidence and feel good with something. Q. It's a little heavier, too? SERGIO GARCIA: A little bit, yeah, obviously, being longer and everything. The head is just a little bit heavier, too. Q. When people win here the fans usually kind of adopt them for the rest of their careers as a former winner. Have you been able to tell any kind of a different response so far this week from the folks who have been out here, and do you expect that the atmosphere during your competitive rounds will be any different than it has been in the past? SERGIO GARCIA: Unfortunately I haven't been out there yet. But, I don't know, I hope it is, like you said. And I'm looking forward to seeing it. Like I said before, I hope that I can get going a little bit this week and see if I can bring my game back to the way it should be and see if we can do a couple of good things, at least give us something to shoot for. Q. Going back to the putter, when did you go to the slightly longer version? Do you stay with this or do you plan to go back to the regular one you use? SERGIO GARCIA: I started using it -- I thought about it a little bit and I starred using it about a couple of weeks ago back at home. And unfortunately I can't predict the future. So I don't know. At the moment I'm staying with it. We'll see how it goes. Q. You alluded to earlier about a little bit of a slump that you're in, that you go through stages like that in your career. When you're in it, how hard is it not to get discouraged or to fight a tendency to maybe get down on yourself because you're trying to climb out of it and it's not happening? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it is, but we are all fighters. We all go through these things. It's just a matter of keep going at it and just waiting for things to change, just hold on to something good that will help you get through it. And that's what I'm searching for. I'm sure I'll find it. Hopefully it will take me less time than more, so we'll see, hopefully this week we'll start going the right way. Q. You've often talked about how much you love this place, how much you love the golf course. Do you like it better since it was redone? SERGIO GARCIA: I like it both times. I thought it was obviously -- I think now it's probably a little bit more fun to play, because you know that even if you miss a fairway you're going to have a chance of getting to the green and the field comes into play a little bit more, kind of feeling how the ball is going to come out of the rough and where you have to fly it to run it into the greens. But I thought it was fine the way it was before, too. The good thing is now with all the work they've done on the course and the SubAir system and all that, they know they don't need that much rough for the course to play rough, and it's showed the last couple of years. Q. This course is known to be an exciting course. How do you think it compares to Augusta or to other courses that host majors in terms of the excitement that's created out here? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, I guess it's similar in a way. Every course is different and it plays different in its own way. But I think that the history, the atmosphere you get on the golf course and everything is definitely -- we've always said it, this feels like a major championship. And I don't think it has anything to -- anything that the majors don't have. It's just -- it's not considered one, but it could be easily considered one. I think that it's great to come back to a place like this. And like we all know, it is our championship and it always makes it a little bit extra special. I don't think it has anything to -- I don't know the right word. CHRIS REIMER: Prove. SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah. Q. What is it about returning to a place where you've won before? Do you almost fall back into the same kind of mindset that you had when you won? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, you try, definitely. There's things that come to mind, shots that you hit here and there, and it's always great. But it's a different week. It doesn't mean that because I've done well here I'm going to do well this year. I certainly hope so and I hope that I can be up there and have a chance, but it's always great to come back to a place that you enjoy playing, that you love and that you've done well. So we'll see how it goes. Q. Have you found that in your career, when you go back to places you've won before, you play better that week in general? SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, probably does, yeah. I'll say so. I think that it's just like kind of that feel that you get on the course that you can see. There's some courses where you get to a shot and you can see a lot of different shots that you can hit and that brings doubts into your head. Do I hit it with a draw, do I hit it with a fade, do I hit it high, things like that. So when you get to a course where you're comfortable, you see the shot straight away, and you say, okay, this is perfect, it's a nice draw or a just a nice putt or something, and it takes the doubts out of your head. You can just focus yourself on hitting the right shot at the right time. Q. Seve Ballesteros made a public appearance a couple of days ago, looked pretty good. Do you have any contact with him? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, unfortunately -- we've talked to his family when he was in the hospital and stuff. And then we talked to Jose Maria Olazabal; he told us that he sat down with him and talked to him a little bit and he was doing very well. It's nice to see that he's recovering. It's a very tough thing what he went through, and it's a long-term fight, if you want to call it. But it's good to see him recovering and hopefully he can be 100 percent as soon as possible. Q. Switching gears, you've committed to playing the HSBC Champions, which is a quasi-WGC event. Since then, a lot of speculation as far as how many Americans will make the trip over there. Are they missing the boat by not considering it? SERGIO GARCIA: I hope they all come. I think that even before, but nowadays we've got to realize how the world is going and we've got to realize that the economy is not great. We all got to make an effort. So I hope that they all make an effort. I think it's going to show who is really up for helping not only the TOUR but golf itself and the game. And we'll see, we'll see what happens. Q. You've been in playoffs in your career. Do you have a preference of how a playoff should be done? Does the U.S. Open do it the best? Does the British Open do it the best? The Masters? Does this place do it the best? SERGIO GARCIA: I don't know. I think that everybody has their own way of doing it. And you can't really say what is the best one. I really -- I think probably I like the way the U.S. Open is done, because it brings it back to a whole round. I think that sometimes it might be a little unfair to lose a tournament only in one hole. But I don't dislike the way the British Open is, at least four holes, three or four holes, and give you -- at least you have a little bit of a chance there, even if you lose a shot on the first hole or something like that. But what is the proper way? I don't know. I think the ones I like the most are probably the British Open first and probably the U.S. Open. Q. Is it kind of odd when you're in a playoff situation, you've done 72 holes of stroke play and you're in match play with the guy next to you. Did Goydos hit his ball in the water before you last year, then all of a sudden you're reacting to that, hitting a shot the way you might have hit it an hour earlier in stroke play, a little bit of an adjustment? SERGIO GARCIA: No, it doesn't really change it that much. At the end of the day you still go out with the shot that you feel comfortable with. For example, last year I didn't change. I was still trying to hit the same shot, even after he hit it in the water. Q. Same target? SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah. If you start trying to change everything, your mindset, the way you were going to shoot it and everything, then all those doubts start creeping in, and it's harder to put on a proper swing. So obviously I was never going to hit it straight at it, but I thought I'm going to hit it just a little bit left, and if it catches the slope perfectly, if not I can two-putt just from the top. But I'm not going to head straight at the middle of the green and leave myself a 60-footer, and even more with the sand wedge there, that we were hitting. So it is -- it's a little bit different, obviously. But at the end of the day it's still all about hitting the right shot at the right time. Q. As sort of a follow-up to that, do you like the playoff here starting at 17? Obviously the fans love it from a drama standpoint. It obviously puts everything on one shot. Or would you prefer it to be 16 or 18? It's obviously got to be one of those three. SERGIO GARCIA: Do I like it? I probably like it better than 18. At least you know that you're hitting a wedge into the green, even though it's a tough green. But 18, first of all, you've got to hit the tee shot in the fairway, which is not an easy task. And then if you manage to hit it in the fairway then you're hitting probably a 6- or 7- or 5-iron into the green. So I don't mind it. It worked for me last year. Q. Switching up gears, I know you're a big Real Madrid fan. Are you going to be helping Barcelona win the championship? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, yeah, I hope so. That's the Spanish guy I am, and Barcelona being a Spanish team, I hope so. And I've got a feeling they're going to do it. They're -- it's a joke how well they're playing. It's just awesome to watch. And anytime -- it's like, I don't know, it's like watching the Bulls when Michael Jordan was playing or LeBron James, and the Cavs or Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol and the Lakers. Every time you watch somebody play great, it's awesome to watch. And I just hope that they get through it and they do it. Q. (Inaudible.) SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it hurt, but it was a great game. It was a great game. I watched the whole thing and I've said it -- even though Madrid is putting a good fight in the league, I thought Barcelona was going to win it because the way they're playing is just too good. Q. Even -- some people seized on that criticism, and they said here goes Sergio again, he's passing the buck. Is any of that criticism justified and do you try to address it in any way? SERGIO GARCIA: Well, like I said in my press release, it was unfortunate, but like I said there, Augusta is that kind of golf course, and we all look up to it. And unfortunately it's also a frustrating golf course. It can be very frustrating when things don't go your way. And unfortunately for me that's the way it's been lately. So I just -- it just caught me at the wrong time and I just said the wrong things, I guess. But you learn from all those things. Q. Any other instances where it's happened -- any other instances where you've reacted that way and you wish you may have acted a different way and had a chance to rephrase things? SERGIO GARCIA: There's a lot of things that you do in your life that you wish you would have done differently, but not only myself, but I think everybody. And I am the way I am. And for good and for worse, what you see is what you get. So the same way that my personality helps me a lot, sometimes it hurts me. It's just a matter of learning how to control it a little bit and just try to do the right thing. Q. You've won very early in life and there are a couple of kids out here now who have also won very early. With the benefit of your perspective, what do you think they're going to face as they try to mature in the game and continue to get better? SERGIO GARCIA: Who are you referring to? Q. Rory and Danny Lee, a couple of guys that have won professionally at an early age. SERGIO GARCIA: I think that they're going to face what we all went through. It's a beautiful game and it's also a very hard one, so the good -- they're good kids; that's an important part. And as long as they enjoy what they do, believing in themselves, they'll be fine. But when you come out, you hope or you think you can win everything and it's going to be easy, and it's not. It's not that easy. So they'll learn from some of the things that they do and also they will win a lot of things because they're good quality players. But we'll see where that takes it. Q. In retrospect do you think -- was it a good thing to win as early as you did, or if you had to do it over would you rather win later? SERGIO GARCIA: I'd rather win earlier, because that's what we practice for and that's what we're here for. I don't know if there's a right time to win. I think that everything happens for a reason and you've just got to take whatever happens and try to make it the best for -- not only for your game and for your career, but also for your person, itself, make sure you grow up as a person. CHRIS REIMER: Hopefully you'll have a great showing this week and good luck defending. End of FastScripts |
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