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HP BYRON NELSON CHAMPIONSHIP

May 23, 2009

Marc Leishman

IRVING, TEXAS

MARK WILLIAMS: Marc Leishman, thanks for coming in to the HP Byron Nelson Championship interview room after a third round 63, 7-under. It's your lowest score on the PGA TOUR. You've won here in Texas in Midland on the Nationwide Tour and you finished tied for fifth last week at the Valero Texas Open. What is it about Texas that you like?
MARC LEISHMAN: Everyone has been asking me that the last few weeks. I don't know what it is. I guess it's the closest thing to -- well, it feels the closest to where I actually live in Australia, down in southern Australia. I guess the terrain is similar, the grass is similar. I don't know, it's hard to put my finger on what it actually is. But there's definitely something about it.
MARK WILLIAMS: Just talk about your round today, nine birdies and a couple of bogeys. Anything stand out?
MARC LEISHMAN: I started off really well. Obviously hit it close on the first three holes. On 10 I was off the green but I was only ten feet from the hole. Obviously that was a good start.
And then the two bogeys in a row on 13 and 14. One was a three-putt, the one on 13. On 14 I hit it left and had to chip out short of the water. Apart from that it was just fairly solid.
When I hit the greens, I was reasonably close and had a good opportunity for birdie. Yeah, it was nice to be playing half decent golf again.

Q. You had a real nice start to the season and had a real solid season overall, three missed cuts until last week. What's happened to turn it around?
MARC LEISHMAN: Obviously I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable out here. My coach was over last Tuesday and Wednesday of the Texas Open, so we worked on a few things in Houston. He was there, as well. And I had gone from sort of here to there -- with this (indicating a center location) being good, I went from here and worked a little bit too hard. You know, we sorted that out early last week, which was good. We found that straightaway on Tuesday, worked on it Wednesday, and then obviously played fairly well last week. And then I've continued on this week so far, so hopefully can have another low one tomorrow.

Q. Who is your coach?
MARC LEISHMAN: Denis McDade. He used to be the head coach of the Victoria Institute of Sport, which is where I played -- it's similar to college but more golf, less school, which is good. He was my coach there, and we've been working together about seven years now.

Q. When you woke up this morning was it just a matter of firing -- did you feel it or did you just start firing at flags and things went? As the round progressed and you started making birdies, what kicked in?
MARC LEISHMAN: I was actually hitting it pretty ordinary on the range. Yeah, and I spent a bit more time on there than I normally would. I wasn't finding the middle of the club early on.
It was just nice to roll -- they weren't long birdie putts, but just to roll a few ten-footers in early on obviously gets your confidence up. And then just hitting the ball obviously reasonably well with my irons and finding the fairways, as well, which somehow is a bit of a problem for me. It was just good to be playing well again.

Q. When you said you didn't hit it well on the range, did it change from when you first got there to when you left to go to the first tee or did you find something on the course?
MARC LEISHMAN: With my shorter clubs when I started I was struggling, hitting it right, left, fat, just struggling. Then just I started finding the middle and had a really good end to the session with my 3-wood and then driver, hit some really good shots there and took that out onto the course.

Q. So by the time you walked on the first tee you felt your game was on?
MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, I was confident on the first tee and had wedge in my hand on the first -- well, the 10th was my first. It was a right pin and I felt confident to hit it straight at it, and I hit it reasonably close.

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about the schooling that you talked about? Were there a lot of good national players there while you were there, and is that something that's really helped the programs in Australia?
MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, the coaches and the biomechanics side of it is really, really advanced. I mean, you travel a lot with -- it's sort of similar to -- I guess it's like a warm-up to a professional career, as in you travel a lot, you're playing events almost every week, like four-round events, also. You just get used to living out of a suitcase, which is good. It's not so much of a shock when you do turn pro. You're used to being away from home, living out of a suitcase, just all the travel stuff, finding somewhere to do your washing, eating out every night, just all that stuff that I'm sure all you guys have to deal with, as well.
But it's good to have that background. The Victorian Institute which I was in is a year-to-year scholarship, so once you get in, you don't -- it's not an automatic three-year scholarship or four-year scholarship. It's fairly cut-throat. If you play bad, you get booted out. You get your year and that's about it.

Q. Is it like an Olympic --
MARC LEISHMAN: It's pretty much designed for Olympic sports, but there's golf, cricket, a few of the bigger sports. Yeah, but it's mainly designed for the Olympic sports.

Q. Where any of the other guys in there, any of the other young Australians in there with you?
MARC LEISHMAN: Jarrod Lyle. I went through the program with Jarrod. Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Ogilvy, Baddeley, all them guys were in there, all the Victorians.

Q. Elkington had something similar, too.
MARC LEISHMAN: I think Elkington was in the Australian Institute, which might have been in Canberra at that time.

Q. Were you a Norman kind of guy, growing up watching Greg?
MARC LEISHMAN: I was, but I was more so Ernie. He was the guy I always looked up to, and I think in '94 when he won his first U.S. Open I was going for him. He was always -- I always looked up to him growing up.
MARK WILLIAMS: Have you ever played with either of those two?
MARC LEISHMAN: I haven't, no. I've met Greg a few times but haven't met Ernie.

Q. So that's going to be fun when you actually get to stand on a tee with him?
MARC LEISHMAN: Hopefully it won't be too far down the track. In the last group somewhere would be nice.

Q. How much does the mindset change after a day like today as you look toward tomorrow? Did you go into today thinking if I shoot lights out I can get back into it, and now that you've posted 63 how does that change for tomorrow?
MARC LEISHMAN: I've still probably got to shoot lights out tomorrow to be close, I think. I'm not sure how far ahead the leaders are. 13 last time I looked. I'm guessing they'll probably get to 15 with sort of a few holes on the back nine to go.
Yeah, I'll probably have to shoot what I shot today again to have a chance. Same mindset as today, just go out and make birdies, and if I can play well and make a few, that's great. We'll just see what happens.

Q. Just along those same lines, what's the key to scoring out here? It seems like the scores are a lot lower this year than last year.
MARC LEISHMAN: There's been no wind, really, to speak of. Normally down here in Texas there's quite a bit of wind, when I've played here anyway. I guess the courses are designed a little bit for that. They're a little bit more forgiving. Greens may be a little bit flatter, just in cases of downwind, downhill putting, yeah, a little flatter.
What was the question again?

Q. What's the key to scoring? Is it shot-making or is it keeping it in the fairway or is it putting?
MARC LEISHMAN: Putting, definitely. Obviously you've got to hit fairways and greens, but if you can be holing putts it just takes pressure off the rest of your game. If you want to fire at a pin and you think, well, if I miss the green here, I can probably chip it up to five foot or ten foot and be confident in holing it. So I think putting is definitely the key, just to give you confidence throughout the rest of your game, for me.

Q. What have you found different about the PGA TOUR than maybe you were expecting?
MARC LEISHMAN: I think the courses are -- I mean, from looking at it from the Nationwide Tour last year, you look at the scores and the scores never seem to be that great, but you look at it, and it's like, oh, they're only shooting 10-under and winning or 15-under is winning, whereas Nationwide you've got to go really deep. You've got to get in the 20s. You look at that and you think, why is that happening? Why isn't 25-under winning?
But the courses are a lot tougher. Rough is longer, fairways are narrower, greens are faster. Everything is more so than what I thought it was going to be. I knew it was going to be narrower and deeper rough, but it's just a lot more than what I thought it was going to be.
I actually changed putters last week to one with a softer face, a Scotty Cameron with a softer face, mainly for the speed of the greens because early on in the season I was feeling like if I had a six-footer downhill I was not hardly making a stroke at it. But with the putter I've got at the moment I feel like if I've got a downhiller, I can still stroke it and it's not going to jump off the face. So I'm slowly adjusting to things. So I hopefully can have another 63 tomorrow or better.

Q. You talked about the conditions here being similar to what you saw in Australia growing up. How about the wind conditions? Or did you grow up in a part of Australia where you're used to playing with the wind where that would kind of be a comfort zone here in Texas?
MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, well, the place I grew up in is "Windy Warrnambool" is people know it as. It's right on the southeastern tip. The next stop south is Antarctica. It gets pretty cold down there in the winter. It's always windy. I mean, you might get one day a year when it's maybe like today. There's never dead calm, which is -- I guess I've just grown up playing in the wind, enjoying the challenge.
MARK WILLIAMS: Mark, we appreciate you coming in. Good luck tomorrow.

End of FastScripts

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