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TURNING STONE RESORT CHAMPIONSHIPSeptember 30, 2009Michael SimVERONA, NEW YORK MARK WILLIAMS: Michael Sim, thanks for joining us at the Turning Stone Resort Championship Media Interview Room. We appreciate you coming in on this nasty weather day. Your first event on the PGA TOUR for a while after three wins on the Nationwide Tour. It's quite a fascinating season you've had over there with three wins. You've played 44 rounds, 26 rounds in the 60s and just seven of them over par. That's pretty sensational playing out there. Just talk about what you're looking forward to this week and moving on the next few weeks. MICHAEL SIM: I obviously played here in 2007, and the course is a great golf course. It's in great shape right now. Obviously the rain has flooded the course a little bit, which is a bit disappointing. I played two practice rounds, played a little bit on Monday and the majority of the holes yesterday and man, there's not a divot on the golf course. It's in perfect shape, and yeah, looking forward to the event. MARK WILLIAMS: And you shot a couple sub par rounds in missing the cut by a shot '07. Conditions were a little different then. How's that going to affect this week's play? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. I remember playing some holes where like the seventh hole hitting like a pitching wedge in '07. I think I hit a 5-iron yesterday. So it's quite a different course setup, and it's different because of the weather. But obviously it's playing softer, and you have to fly at the flags a lot more, and I don't think the scoring will be too much different. MARK WILLIAMS: You were just saying earlier you win three times and you get a battlefield promotion on the Nationwide Tour and you come out here and you got a sponsor invite. You probably would have got it anyway without it, but it's difficult to get into tournaments, I guess, now. MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. Obviously in the Fall Series there are two less events this year than last year, obviously the Ginn is no longer and the Valero event moved into the FedExCup schedule, so obviously two events less. And yes, it was nice to get an invite this week. It took a lot of pressure off my number coming up, and eventually it did come up on Monday night. But I'm happy to be here and hopefully I can make Top 10 and play in Vegas. I think I'm about 18 spots out of Vegas. And then the Frys event, I'm about 12 out. So yeah, took six weeks off to prepare for the Fall Series, and I'm not getting into the field. So I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to keep playing. I've only played 15 events this year, and that's not many at all. So whether I play the Tour Championship and Miccosukee on the Nationwide schedule, I'm not sure. Just hoping to get some invites into Vegas and Grayhawk, so looks like Viking will be good. After then I'll go home and play the three in Australia, so I've still got a good bit of golf to play the remainder of the year. MARK WILLIAMS: So it's kind of a wait-and-see situation for you, I guess, depending on your performance. Is that kind of unsettling or does it make you even more hungry to perform well and sort of get a schedule underway? MICHAEL SIM: Well, it's only 13 weeks to the new year, so it's not too long till I tee it up in Hawaii. But like I said before, I expected to get into these events in the Fall Series, but it is a little unsettling. I thought I was going to get in every event, and I probably wouldn't have taken six weeks off. I might have kept playing Utah or might have played Boise or something like that, but you know, I'm just going to try and play my best this week and try and get in contention, and yeah, do the best I can, and hopefully I'll play my way into Vegas. MARK WILLIAMS: Just leading into that, you said it might have been -- do you think it's detrimental in a way after your third win in Kansas that maybe you didn't keep playing given the fact that you might have come into Greg Norman's spotlight, maybe as consideration for a captain's pick if you had have kept playing? Do you think that might have made him look a little closer or have you spoken to him about it at all? MICHAEL SIM: Greg and I have left voicemails for each other. We actually haven't spoken to each other yet. I think he's in Korea right now. He didn't speak to me all year about Presidents Cup, and obviously I started the year about 360 in the world ranking, so I was probably never on his radar and obviously had a great season. And obviously winning three times my form is probably obviously up there with anyone else going for that last captain's pick, but I think he made two great choices. Adam Scott has had a not-so-great season, but he's still a Top 10 player in the world. And obviously Ryo Ishikawa has won like six times or five times in Japan, which is quite incredible at his age, so I think the team will do well. But I wanted to go home and see my family and see my coach, David Milne, and prepare for these last five events that I was going to play. And saw my physio and trainer, and I mean, I'm ready to play. So yeah, just kind of wanted to take some time off and yeah, there's events that I'm not in. So hopefully play some good golf this week. Q. Michael, do you think you lost anything in that six-week layoff or will you not know until Friday here? MICHAEL SIM: As in? Q. You know, the competitiveness. I mean sometimes if you step away from it for a while, a month, month and a half, get it back on in, there's one or two rounds and so you're like, oh, this is again what it's all about. Do you think you've lost that? MICHAEL SIM: I've had a couple of good breaks this year. I had a four-week break around maybe July, and I've only played 15 events this year, which isn't that many, so to win three times, that's one out of every five. So I mean, I'm ready to play. I played a bit of golf when I was home in Australia. I did some hard work with my coach and just worked on my mental game and my pre-shot routine and just tried to stay as competitive as I can when I was at home. So like I said, I'm ready to play. I don't feel like I've lost the edge or anything, and yeah, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's round. Q. As far as getting to the rest of the events, have you applied for sponsors' exemptions at the other tournaments at this point? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. I applied for Vegas, and obviously I'm 18 out, so there's guys in that Q-School category where they could be on the bubble and try to keep their card. So I don't think I'll get into the Vegas event. But I live in Phoenix. I live on the second hole of the Grayhawk tournament, so I had a good finish there last year, and I think my agent, Bob Martin has been in contact with Scott Reid, the tournament director down there, and hoping to get a start down there as well, but if I'm out, there's a few other guys out as well. So whether I play the Tour Championship or Frys, I'll make that decision probably the last minute. If I get in the Frys, I'm definitely going to play Frys. But it would be great to play Tour Championship as well. Obviously want to play golf. I've taken my time off and I've come back and I want to play. Just go play Nationwide. Q. The start of your career has been similar to a lot of players where you get some success, get on the PGA, get bounced, don't quite make it and go back. And now you've had some great success on the Nationwide Tour. What have you learned here this year that now you'll be able to take when you get on the PGA TOUR hopefully this year and next year? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. I was on the PGA in '07, and I obviously feel like I'm a better player now, winning three times. You know, I feel like I can win on the regular TOUR, and I feel like I can compete out here. I played two major championships this year, and I did reasonably well. And I'm looking forward to the remainder of this season and definitely looking forward to next season. I feel ready to play. I feel like my game's improved a lot since '07. Obviously my stats this year on the Nationwide Tour were pretty good. I've been driving the ball really, really well this year, and you know, I think that's a big part of playing the PGA TOUR. You drive the ball well, it sets up the rest of the round, the rest of your game. So as long as I can keep doing that, it gives you a lot of birdie chances, so I've actually -- plus I put the new wedges in my bag this week. I was playing around with them in Australia, thought it would be a good time for me to put them in the bag now rather than the start of the year. It'll give me some -- Q. P grooves? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. The P grooves. I put them into play this week. So I'll play with them through the remainder of the season, and yeah, I think it's a good move to put them in play and have a couple of months under our belt before January. Q. Have you talked to any other players about doing that or do you know anybody else that's doing that? MICHAEL SIM: I don't know. I haven't spoken to them about it. I felt like it's the right thing to do for myself. Obviously I don't really have anything to lose the remainder of the year. I just want to be ready for January next year, and I think putting the wedges in play is a good move. Q. Are you seeing a difference? Is the flyer coming back in the game? MICHAEL SIM: A little bit. I think between like 30 and 50 yards out of the rough, the ball is definitely jumping, feels like it accelerates off the base a lot more. So I never played the spin milled wedges. I just played regular wedges. So I don't see a huge difference, mainly just from the rough, around the greens and just general pitch shots, it's pretty similar. Q. Did you stay with the same brand? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. Same brand, same wedge. Just a different groove. The U groove. So yeah, it's just mainly coming out of the rough, and just pops a little bit more, just a little bit more release. Q. It releases more than it does? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. It definitely releases. It's definitely very, very difficult to spin the ball from the rough. You just -- it is different. Q. Last thing, you, Jason Gore, Nick Flanigan and a bunch of others, you guys decided to have a little club here, a little battlefield promotion club? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. I think there's nine of us now. It's terrific, and actually, my roommate, Nick Flanigan, we stayed together, and it was nice to do what he's done. And yeah, it feels great to have won three times. And that was the goal at the start of the year, and it was nice to complete it. MARK WILLIAMS: One more question. Having not played for a few weeks now and your schedule over the next few weeks, how closely are you watching the Nationwide Tour Money List? I've seen your fluctuation. I know Blake Adams has made a little move on you. How closely are you paying attention to that? MICHAEL SIM: Yeah. I have looked at it a little bit. Blake's had a good little run there. He obviously hasn't won yet. He's almost up to 400,000, so he's had a tremendous season from conditional status. I think I played with him at the BMW in the final round, and he was telling me he had conditional status and pretty much played his way into the remainder of the year. So there's obviously two big events coming up, there's the Soboba event this week, million dollar purse, and obviously the Tour Championship, too. And there's two guys there, Chris Tidland, Tom Gillis and Blake. They've definitely got a chance to pass me. MARK WILLIAMS: Will that influence your decision on whether to play anywhere on the Nationwide Tour the next few weeks or not? MICHAEL SIM: No. If I get invites on the main TOUR, I'll play main TOUR, obviously, but I'm obviously not going to reshuffle next year. So I can pretty much pick and choose what I want to play, obviously not the invitationals. But if I get off to a good start next year, I can obviously play my way into that Players Championship. I'm not sure if I have a world ranking category or not. But if someone passes me, you know, great. They've obviously played great the last few weeks. You know, there's still quite a ways behind, so you know, it would be nice to play the Tour Championship, but if I get in Frys, I'll just make that decision when I hear back from the Grayhawk tournament. MARK WILLIAMS: Sure. Well, Michael, we appreciate you coming in. Thank you very much, and all the best for the week. MICHAEL SIM: Sure. End of FastScripts |
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