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THE BARCLAYSAugust 27, 2009Paul GoydosJERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY LAURA HILL: Thanks for joining us. A tidy 65 to start the PGA TOUR Playoffs. Just get a reaction on your round today. PAUL GOYDOS: Surprising. I think the field staff did a good job this morning. I think it's going to be a more difficult course in the afternoon. We'll see where everybody stands after tomorrow afternoon. Obviously very happy. I putted extremely well, and I got off to -- 10 and 11 are tough holes, I made two pars there, and felt like two birdies and calmed things down and had a good day. Q. Do you like this course as a golf course, as a setup, Statute and Manhattan? PAUL GOYDOS: Versus being a polo field, a soccer field? Q. An oil refinery? As a golf course to play. PAUL GOYDOS: I think the field staff has a challenging week, because there are some holes that are going to play very difficult, especially if it firms up. I think they did a pretty good job today, moved some tees around and get us around the golf course in a reasonable fashion. The golf course is what it is. It's a long, hard golf course with difficult greens. I don't think it's meant to be easy, I know that. I don't think Tom Kite was thinking, let's see how easy I can make this course. I don't think that was his mindset. Q. I didn't quite understand the last thing you had said about making a couple of pars that felt like birdies. Where was that? PAUL GOYDOS: 10, the brutal par 4, I hit a driver and basically a wood in and 11, I hit a wood on a par 3. To me, that's almost like two birdies starting out in a sense, but it's an easy golf course starting on 10; you get off to a bad start, and I did, and more than anything else, I'm very happy -- I kind of have the idea, if I hit a good drive and basically a rescue on 10 to about 20 feet and hit a good rescue on 11 to about 25 feet, and if I can hit those two shots, I pretty much can hit the 7-iron on 1 and it just gets me in a good frame of mind. My golf swing is good. I think playing two of the tougher holes on the golf course, I played them about as well as I can play them. In a sense, it gives you a level of comfort there. Q. You said long, difficult golf course, yet you got a 65. You also said they moved some tees around. How does that happen on a day like today? PAUL GOYDOS: I think the morning round is going to play easier, a lot softer and a lot more moisture on the greens. The greens were basically perfect today. Let's see, let's let everybody play 36 holes. I think the golf course will be a much different golf course in the afternoon. But, I think in theory, you have 125 of the best players on the PGA TOUR here this week, someone is going to shoot a low round every day. Today was my chance, but you know, four 65s is going to win by an awful lot; that's like a Tiger win, or a Brian Gay win. I had my good round today. I'm happy with that, but my expectations, it's a golf course where I think anything around par actually is a pretty good score I think. Today was more of a bonus. Q. As a player, do you think about the points system? Do you come into tournaments saying, I need to finish at least here so I can get so many points to set me up for next week? Do you think about all that? PAUL GOYDOS: I think the one thing, I think it's 2,500 points for winning, I know that. It's amazing how good play will take care of all those points things that you worry about. I know that 2,500 points is first place, and I know that Tiger is at 3,400 or something like that. So I know if I win this week, I still don't catch him. Other than that, no. It's amazing, I don't think people don't pay much attention. I think good play will take care of that more than anything else. Q. Along the same lines, are you of the belief that a season-long format, is it okay if a guy who plays well over four weeks, even if he didn't do much the whole year, is it okay if that guy wins, or should it be a guy who plays well? PAUL GOYDOS: I've had that conversation with a number of different players and people, and it's the same answer: Is it okay that the New York Giants won the Super Bowl two years ago. Q. Most people here would say yes (laughter). PAUL GOYDOS: One team went undefeated and one team had two or three losses; is that okay. Who is the champion of the NFL? The New York Giants, not the New England Patriots. I think that's what they are trying to accomplish. I think that if they get a scenario where somebody wins the first three events and finishes second in the fourth event but the guy who is fifth in the points events wins the FedExCup, I think you'll have something to write about, but in my opinion, the more you guys write about it, the better it is for us anyways. Controversy in a sense is what draws people's attention. It's not going to be a perfect system no matter what they do. This one is pretty good. Q. Are you trying to win the ten million, or are you thinking of trying to get to THE TOUR Championship? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, I've been out here long enough, I'm just trying to play golf. My attitude this week, and has been really the last two months, be rested and be mentally ready to play golf on Thursday and see what happens. More like how I play at home with my friends. I think the game, there's going to be as close to -- somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 starts on the PGA TOUR and there's going to be 42 people win or 46 people who win; winning is a fickle thing sometimes. My goal is to play the best I can and to be honest today I didn't see much better than the 65 I had today, so today is a good day. I go out and do my work, try to play as well as I can tomorrow. Those kind of goals, I think in the back of your mind -- the one you have is to be in the top 5 standing on the first tee at wherever that fourth event is. Q. East Lake. PAUL GOYDOS: East Lake. If you're one of those four or five guys, I think you've pretty much accomplished what you're trying to accomplish. Q. How do you pace yourself for 16 rounds of golf, which is essentially what you'll have to play in order to win the FedExCup. PAUL GOYDOS: Well, it's not 16 football games. I mean, it is golf, and I play -- I have three events in a row for me if I get that far, and then a week off and another one. Hopefully that's not going to be a big deal. I'll be honest with you, again, going back to what I have done the last two or three months, yesterday, I was an alternate for the Pro-Am, I hit some balls in the morning, I was back in my hotel room at ten o'clock in the morning yesterday resting. I think one of the most underrated and untalked about ways to prepare is to be rested come Thursday morning. Knock-on-wood, hopefully that's part of the reason why I played well is I was in a pretty good frame of mind. I was comfortable. I wasn't out beating balls all day. I got my rest. To be honest I've been doing that a lot, and again, I think that you do need to do that under this kind -- the other thing is that it's much more difficult to play those 16 rounds, in my opinion, if you're in contention all 16 rounds. Something I really haven't done much of for a one-month period quite frankly, and that's part of the cool challenge of it. You can really play that well, look at the guys, Steve Stricker a couple years ago was in the Top-10, and Rory was in the Top-10 in all four events and Tiger obviously does it on a constant basis and Phil and the top players do it a lot. It's a good challenge to pace yourself when you're ready and know that you need to rest when you need to rest. Q. How do you rest? PAUL GOYDOS: Well, I sat on the bed and flipped the channel and I did a crossword puzzle and read a book. Just kind of get myself away from golf a little bit, which basically for me, it's in my hotel room, I walked down to mail a package and got something to eat. Just kind of -- it's almost mental rest as much as it is physical rest. Just letting my mind kind of relax and enjoying it more -- enjoyable is not the right word because I enjoy what I do. Q. Are you staying in Jersey? PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, and I didn't take a boat to the course. Sounds like it's pretty cool, but I'm in Jersey City. Q. Going through what you went through, does it change your perspective on playing golf? PAUL GOYDOS: I'd like to think I'd have a good perspective for more than a year. Life is short, and people in your family are really what's important. I would hope to God that I would have prior to this year, but those things are enforced and you miss them more. Q. Your family, your daughters with you this trip? PAUL GOYDOS: No, my oldest is in school. She starts school this week. My youngest is going to Hawaii Saturday before she starts school. I think my oldest would have liked to come, and she's got school. My youngest would much rather go to Hawaii. (Laughter). I talk to them once or twice a day, text them. We have gotten so good at technology, it's just crazy. I pretty much -- I guess if you have young kids, you can GPS them. But yeah, and they are at the age now where they understand it and they both have jobs and they understand you are earning money and there's a responsibility there and they understand what I'm doing more now than maybe ten years ago. Q. Hawaii or Jersey City, how long did she wrestle with that one? PAUL GOYDOS: Having said that, if I told her she could have gone into the city and shopped for three or four days, she probably would have come. (Laughter). Q. Has that gotten easy, so to speak? PAUL GOYDOS: I think that's the thing that's difficult about our job, is you have to be able to compartmentalize. The hardest day is Sunday when I leave, travelling Sunday and once I get out on site and I talk to them and everything is -- yeah, they are fine; but I think one of the most important things you need to be able to do to be successful at a job where you travel is compartmentalize your time. I think the successful TOUR players can do that. Q. Did you hit an extraordinary number of metal-headed clubs today than usual? PAUL GOYDOS: Well, I hit all metal-headed clubs today because my irons -- Q. Let me see if I can pitch it -- PAUL GOYDOS: For the first nine holes, I had to hit four rescues into greens, and I should have hit two more. But I didn't drive it good on 7 and I should have hit rescue on 9 instead of 4-iron. But the golf course is soft and it really -- I'm playing good and I'm swinging it good and I like the way I'm playing. I don't think I'm at a big disadvantage hitting rescue. I played with Ernie Els and Ernie is hitting 5-iron. I think the disadvantage is when I'm hitting 4- or 5-iron and not-9-iron. There is a thought when you make the golf course long enough, it will go back to favoring shorter hitters because the longer hitters are hitting 2- and 3- and 4-irons, and where they are hitting 9-iron and I'm hitting 4-iron, that's where I disagree -- Q. So you disagree with the notion that's been around, making courses longer? PAUL GOYDOS: I think we have not gotten to the point yet where we are not. I think you could get eventually get to where we are stopped. We are not there yet. This golf course, in my opinion, is kind of a long-hitter's course but let's just see. Hopefully the hurricane will miss us. I think the golf course is drier today than it was Tuesday when I played. I think drying the golf course out there help a lot, too. But I talked to Ernie a little bit today, and this is going to be a spectacular tournament on television. They are going to have a lot of shots of New York, the Statue of Liberty, and it really is going to be a great spectacle and I think it's going to be great for the City of New York and the City of New Jersey and probably Barclays and the FedExCup and the PGA TOUR playing here. It's undeniably going to be as gorgeous as hell. Q. You mentioned the NFL and the other sports, you know that the playoff games are just different, does this feel like the Playoffs? Does this feel different from a regular tournament? PAUL GOYDOS: I think you'd have to ask guys -- I think you have to wait until you get to the point where you're in contention Saturday or Sunday. No, today, the answer would be no. I don't know, that would be the answer on Saturday or Sunday. But I think as you, ^narcotics playoff game in the NFL, if you lose, you're done. And one team is going to move on. We are going to have a hundred guys move on next week, so it's a little different. I'm guaranteed pretty much to have that spot. It's going to be a different feel, anyway. So we do these -- this is my 425th tournament. I've gotten pretty much used to what it's about. It doesn't have yet the same feel as a major would, but get me on Sunday afternoon with a chance to win in Atlanta, I might have a totally different answer to that question. I just haven't had the experience to answer the question. Q. What's more important, a spectacular tournament on TV, or a spectacular tournament between the ropes? PAUL GOYDOS: You know, I think it's probably going to be -- I don't know if I'm the person you should even ask that question. You might want to ask Tim that question. You guys might know the answer to that better than I do. My guess is maybe 75/25. I think if you have Tiger and Phil or some type of really -- somebody people really want to watch, that's going to be great. The backdrop is probably going to be cool. If you have a runaway, then I think it will be the spectacularness of the event. New York, it is a spectacular city. There's no better place, no better backdrop. You're aiming at a building on some holes in Manhattan. I think still, we need to have a great championship, really, to draw people in. I don't think we are going to draw people in because it's beautiful looking out on television. I think we are going to draw people in, because like I said, Tiger and Phil are doing well on Sunday. I think it will be just a nice additive. I got around in circles, but I got around to an answer. (Laughter). Q. What do you think about this FedExCup, who does it mean more to, the five guys favored to win, or guys ranked 35th in the world, and possibly can make a career in four weeks? PAUL GOYDOS: I think the FedExCup is more important to the next generation of golfer. We are in the era of major championships and Tiger passing Jack's record. I think the best thing about the FedExCup will be the next generation, the people that you see at The First Tee and those deals, ten and 15 years from now, when the FedExCup becomes more entrenched in our game, it's going to be I think at a reasonably close level to a major championship playing in the FedExCup. I think today's players still probably are focused more on a major championship being more important than the FedExCup. I think the goal of the FedExCup is to the next generation of golfers is going to be more important than the majors. Having said that, there's 125 guys this week, I don't know who is 125th, I think it's Troy Mattison, I'm not sure, if he wins this event, and he's very capable of winning this event, he's won on TOUR before, I would imagine he would vault into the top 5 without a doubt unless -- things that would have to happen for that not to be the case. So everybody here, their goal is to win the FedExCup. And if Paul Goydos somehow wins the FedExCup, I don't know if that would be -- you don't know what's going to happen down the road. I might win the FedExCup this year and three majors next year; you just don't know. I think there's hundreds of players that are capable of not only winning this, but winning a major championship playing right now. It's just a matter of getting it done or having everything come together and believing in yourself to do it. But from a talent standpoint, there's hundreds of people capable. Just we don't get it done. LAURA HILL: Paul, thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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