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THE BARCLAYSAugust 25, 2009Ryan MooreJERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Ryan Moore, thanks for joining us here at The Barclays, the first event in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Your win last week, your first PGA TOUR win at the Wyndham Championship, you jumped up to 22nd in the standings. Talk first and foremost about your first PGA TOUR win. RYAN MOORE: It's been a while since I've won a tournament, so that was a huge week last week for me to break through like that. I've had a few tournaments where I was close and took second. And things, I just couldn't quite get them to go my way, and Sunday afternoon, things just seemed to go my way. Ended up making a bogey but still getting into a playoff. I love match play and I love those situations and having had playoff experience before, I kind of really knew what to expect and just really went in there and fortunately got it done. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: I don't know if ironic is the word but a different golf course, you made your professional debut at The Barclays Tournament in Westchester a couple of years ago, and here you are back now. Just a couple observations. We'll take some questions. Q. I presume you've played the golf course this morning? RYAN MOORE: I played the front nine only. Q. What are your thoughts about it? Do you like this kind of golf course? Is it something totally different than you are used to? RYAN MOORE: I like it personally. It was my first look at it, but it's in great condition. The fairways are great and the greens are rolling really good. They have good speed on them. You know, I'm never too weird about layouts or anything like that. Every course I kind of try and treat the same. There's 18 tee boxes and 18 greens and you just kind of figure out what you've got to do and everything in between there. Q. Did you play Chambers Bay? RYAN MOORE: Yeah. Q. Was there any parallel there in that they were both basically toxic waste dumps? RYAN MOORE: It has a very similar feel driving it here as you do driving it in Chambers. Chambers is more driving on a big hill that just looks out over the water this. One you kind of come in below it and pop up to it. Yeah, very similar feel to them. Q. Because this course has no history book, there's no homework been done on it, what do you do on a week like this? 18 greens, 18 tees, everything like that, but do you place emphasis on trying to get to know the course a little bit better because it's new? RYAN MOORE: Not really, just familiar enough to know what kind of shots, to know what club do you want to be hitting off tees, get familiar with just how the holes work, which way it kicks and stuff around the greens, where is the best place to be, if you're going to miss it, any of the par 5s and stuff like that. It's the same kind of preparation as any other week. A course like this doesn't give anybody an advantage because we've never seen it. Q. Is there a caddie book on this one? Did somebody do one of those up with sprinkler heads and all that stuff? RYAN MOORE: I don't use them. Q. You don't? RYAN MOORE: I don't use them. Q. How do you -- RYAN MOORE: Just like I've always done it. I don't know why I would ever change it. It says the exact same thing in the yardage book as it does on the sprinkler heads. I don't know. I've never liked them and I don't think I ever will. Q. I know you've won it for a while but how did you start going with this head ware, a couple three years now? RYAN MOORE: Yeah. Q. Somebody handed one to you and you liked it? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, just I bought won one time. I think it was a Puma one a few years ago, and yeah, it was just a lot more comfortable. I've never really liked a normal hat just on me and they gave me headaches. I've never been that comfortable wearing a normal hat. I just kind of search around and try to find one that's a little more comfortable and this one just seemed to work, seemed to fit. Q. Was there a woman involved? RYAN MOORE: No, actually no. There wasn't. (Laughter) No, there wasn't. There is now, but there wasn't then. Q. Assuming you didn't get to make it back home, Vegas or back home, Pacific Northwest, what's been the reaction on both of those fronts now that you've finally got off the schnide? RYAN MOORE: All of Washington has been very supportive of me. It's kind of funny, my little brother, who has been out here caddying for me a lot, he doesn't have TV at his house. I was kind of out of it and wasn't really that close to the lead on Sunday. And so he noticed on his phone that I birdied a couple of holes in a row and went down, just to -- it's called a Ram, a big sports bar with 20, 25 TVs in there and they got there and just had them turn on some TVs. After about ten or 15 minutes, every single TV had it on; whereas when they were there a week before, you know, for the week end of the PGA Championship, two TVs had the PGA Championship on. So, you know, they are very supportive of me up there, which I appreciate a lot. And he said the whole place, nobody was working and they were all screaming at the TVs. Q. What city is that? RYAN MOORE: Tacoma, which is pretty much where I'm from. I grew up in Puyallup, which is a suburb of Tacoma. Actually I don't live in Vegas anymore. Q. Where are you now? RYAN MOORE: I have a place in Scottsdale, I spend a little bit of time there, but not too much. I'm primarily up in Washington and actually my girlfriend lives here in New York, so I've been here a lot lately. Haven't been over to this golf course yet. I'm lazy every time I come here, I don't know. Q. Have you seen the 16th hole yet? RYAN MOORE: No. Q. So no ideas of strategy? RYAN MOORE: Nope. I'll see it tomorrow. We'll see. Either hit it in the fairway or on the green and go with it from there. That's usually what I try and do. Q. Do you like drivable par 4s? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I like things that give you a chance. I think that a lot of them are extreme and really are not drivable the way they put greens, the way they set it in there, they say it's drivable just purely on the distance, but it's really not a drivable par 4 because you have no chance of hitting the green. And that's about how half of them are. So I don't know what this one is like at all. I heard there was a good drivable par 3 out here, though. (Laughter). JOEL SCHUCHMANN: 250. Q. Were you at Ridgewood last year? RYAN MOORE: I was. Q. Did you go for No. 5 every time? RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I hit a couple of horrible shots there to be honest. I hit one like 150 yards right, in the other fairway; it was a great angle actually, never thought about playing that way. Q. Just wondering, if I could get your take on the latest version of the FedExCup scheme and how it's playing out this year, where they think they are getting closer to getting it nailed down, further away from getting nailed down, it's supposed to be a season-long points race, but also a four-week sweepstakes and looks like they are trying to figure out how to balance the two, if that's possible. RYAN MOORE: Yeah, it's definitely a tough thing that they are trying to do, trying to make it fair for somebody who is playing all year and not trying to let somebody come in who has not played that great but played solid enough and then just goes and wins and all of a sudden wins it. I think it's a tough test that they have to balance. I think every year has gotten better and I think it's just going to keep getting better and better and getting closer, and maybe this system is perfect and they will really like how this goes and it might stick like this. I think it's good from everything I've seen of it. I've got to be honest, I don't pay attention too much to anything like that. I didn't even know this field was a 125 field until last week. That's how little I pay attention, because I just figure, if you play good, you don't have to worry about that stuff. Q. Tough question for you. Before last week, would you have graded your pro career as a success or a disappointment? RYAN MOORE: I would definitely grade it as an extreme success, actually, at that point in time. You know, it's hard to explain how difficult it is to play injured, and to be playing injured with what is to me like the most vital part of my golf swing, which is my left hand and wrist. I've always been a very left-hand dominant swinger of the golf club. So for that to be injured and for me to still be able to get around, and actually almost win a few times, and have a fair bit of Top-10s and keep myself in the Top-125, really, I think my worst finish is 80-something where I finished last year. I was proud of that, just battling through. I knew eventually I was going to feel like myself again. Eventually I was going to feel comfortable. And then that's when I knew, you know, wins would start happening, and it was really difficult to not get too frustrated and to not get really impatient, because I know I'm capable of winning golf tournaments. But I also have to be reasonable with myself and say I'm just flat-out not physically capable of doing what I know I can do. And really, it took until about the U.S. Open this year where I finally just felt like myself again standing over the golf ball. Like I felt comfortable. I felt confident. And I mean, really, until then, I had not felt that in over three years. So I'm proud of myself for battling through that, still keeping my card and fighting into contention a few times. So you know, it was frustrating going that long without winning. The last time I won a tournament was in March of 2005, I won a college tournament. That was the last tournament I won in Houston. This is the longest stretch of my whole life without winning a golf tournament. I've been winning tournaments -- my very first golf tournament I ever played, I won. I've been winning tournaments constantly -- Q. Almost can't help but go downhill from there. RYAN MOORE: Yeah, I set myself up for disappointment, for sure. But really, yeah, this has been a long time. It feels good to get it off my back, but more than anything, it feels good to just feel good on a golf course again, and feel like I'm able to be in contention every week and have a chance, which I have really done a lot the last couple of months. Q. When was the hand surgery? RYAN MOORE: 2006. Like right during the Masters. I had to withdraw from the Masters because of it. Q. So you had a (indicating wide) swing for a year-plus? RYAN MOORE: I had to do that just to alleviate the pain just so I could play and had some good finishes that way. I've had to do some pretty crazy things. I'm happy I can just stand over the ball and feel good about it. Q. When you have a sustained period of success like that that you had in your amateur career, and then go through a slump like you've been the last three-plus, four years, when you hear people say, oh, well, Tiger Woods is in a slump because he didn't win a major this year, do you just smirk and say, does anyone really know how hard it is to win out here on a weekly basis? RYAN MOORE: Oh, definitely. I constantly think that way. I hear all sorts of criticism that people have towards different golfers here and there. It's just not easy. There's been a lot of criticism on me at different times, and you know, even Sunday, I have no idea how I got into a playoff and got in there and hit the shots when I hit them. It felt great and in the moment, it was fine, but looking back on it, wow, it's a little bit crazy. It's just not easy. And to do what he does, on a weekly basis, is just incredible. He's such a good putter; really, that's not all that matters in golf, but pretty much, if you putt well every week, it just alleviates so much else in your game. It makes you relax with the irons. You don't feel like you have to hit it in close every single hole. You don't feel a strain on your chipping and stuff that you have to slash out to a foot. When you are not making 5-footers, gosh, you feel like if you don't hit it to two feet you're going to make a bogey or if you miss a green you feel like you're going to make a bogey. So just, you know, your putter is all of your positive momentum in golf. It really is making a 15-footer for par, feels better than knocking to two feet and making a tap-in birdie sometimes. It just really makes you feel good and gives you good momentum to move forward. That's what he does so well. But it is golf, and it is difficult, and you know, it doesn't always work. But it's pretty silly if anybody ever criticizes him for anything that he does, that's pretty much all I'm going to say on that. Q. Since the victory was such a long time coming, entering a stretch of Playoffs that seems to reward hot play and you won the last one, does it put you in a strange position sort of, like something could happen? RYAN MOORE: You know, I'm just happy with the state of my game right now more than anything. I had a 10th place finish at the U.S. Open. I had a fourth place after that. I had an 11th place finish like three weeks in a row. I played pretty solid the next week, I was just pretty tired. I only played once in between the John Deere and last week, and had a good amount of time off. Just had a good break. I played Michigan and just really couldn't get into a rhythm there and didn't putt well. But I've seen some consistency in my golf game again, and that's really what I've been looking for. And so for me, it's not even excited that I won last week going into the FedExCup to enter into the Playoffs; it's just a matter of I feel like I'm playing consistent golf and I feel like I can be in contention in golf tournaments again on a consistent basis. That's what I'm happy with right now. JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Ryan Moore, congratulations on last week and good luck in the Playoffs. End of FastScripts |
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