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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 7, 2009John MallingerPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA CHRIS REIMER: Want to welcome John Mallinger to the interview room, 6-under first round. Seemed like there were some good scores out there today. Just talk about the conditions. JOHN MALLINGER: It was perfect this morning. There wasn't much wind. There was a little humidity, but other than that, I got off to a good start. It was just one of those things I got the momentum going. Q. I bumped into your caddie yesterday and he says you had a long, intense practice session yesterday. How intense was it? JOHN MALLINGER: Pretty intense. It's one of the bigger tournaments of the year, so I planned on taking last week off. I went home and I worked with my golf coach three or four days and we had some pretty good sessions and we accomplished some great things with my golf swing. And I kind of took that confidence into this week. We kind of worked on that, the same stuff yesterday. We took it out of the mechanics place and we went straight and played golf. Q. John, your first couple of years here didn't turn out so good. At least for today what did you figure out about this course that maybe wasn't working? JOHN MALLINGER: I spent a lot more time on my practice rounds around the greens, just kind of analyzing where you need to play. There's some certain spots where you can't play from around here, and unfortunately I didn't hit many of those. I think I erred on my short side one time today and I got up-and-down. But I really concentrated on the grain and chipping and putting. That was my biggest thing. You've got to drive it well out here and you have to chip and putt well. Q. Did the confidence that you got from the practice sessions around the green did translate into if I miss this shot I'm not going to worry, because I know I can get up-and-down from that, and allowed you to hit more greens? JOHN MALLINGER: Maybe. This is the type of golf course where you have to plot your way around, it's A, B, C. You see all different types of winners here, Fred Funk and David Toms has been playing well. Those are the kind of guys I look up to. Those are the kind of guys that hit it there, and hit there, and make the putt. They're not flashy or anything else. I kind of just look at their games and see how I can kind of get better at my game. Q. How many drivers did you hit today? JOHN MALLINGER: I have no idea. Probably -- there's probably only three or four holes I hit 3-wood, other than that I hit driver a lot. Q. Really good finish in Houston, has it just been building, and what clicked? JOHN MALLINGER: I felt like I've been playing all year. I haven't had four great rounds. For some reason it all kind of came together today. I hit it in the right spots and I think that's what you've got to do out here. I didn't do anything special. I laid up on a couple of par-5s, got up-and-down on those. I hit some really good irons, where you've got to hit some good irons. I didn't make any long putts or anything. I made the ones that I hit close. I just kind of stuck to my game plan. Q. Who was your coach, and how long have you been working with him? JOHN MALLINGER: Jay Mulligan, this is probably about our 10th year together. He also works with John Merrick and Peter Tomasulo. Q. Merrick is playing pretty well this year and Paul had a good tournament this year and last year, is there something in the Long Beach water these days? JOHN MALLINGER: I hope so. Q. How close of a group is it out there? Off weeks and off-season, do you see each other, play together at all? JOHN MALLINGER: Yeah, it's very close. We've got a good group of guys out at Virginia Country Club we all hang with. Paul has been a great mentor to us. John Cook has been great to us. Merrick has been playing awesome. That finish at the Masters -- I played some practice with him yesterday and I don't think I've ever seen anybody drive the ball better than that. I think we kind of feed off each other, we've got a nice group, we have a great golf coach. And we all have different games, but he knows how to teach our games. We don't go off anything else. We go off basically his eye. CHRIS REIMER: Are you going to rock a Dirt Bag at any point? JOHN MALLINGER: Yeah, maybe Sunday night. Q. Do you own a Dirt Bag? JOHN MALLINGER: I do. Q. Is it with you? JOHN MALLINGER: It's not with me, but I'll find one. CHRIS REIMER: Good luck the rest of the way. End of FastScripts |
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