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VALERO TEXAS OPEN

May 12, 2010

Sergio Garcia

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

DOUG MILNE: Okay. Sergio Garcia, thanks for joining us for a few minutes here prior to the onset of the Valero Texas Open. Obviously, an important week for you, a big week with your ties to the design of the course. If you maybe could just talk a little bit about your involvement, what kind of hand you had in it and what that experience was like.
SERGIO GARCIA: It was definitely a great experience. I think the golf course has come out great. Probably just a little bit tougher than we maybe expected at the beginning but it's very good.
We had a lot of good feedback from players and it's a challenging golf course. You have to drive the ball well. It's quite challenging around the greens. But, overall, I think what was great for me, it was a great experience to work with Greg Norman and his golf course design group. They obviously are a very high quality group and, you know, it was an amazing experience and I'm just happy that I was able to help a little bit, give it a little bit of input and make sure that the course came out the way we want it.
DOUG MILNE: Before we take questions, just talk a little bit about your game. You have only missed one cut this year. You finished 5th at Match Play earlier in the year. Just kind of assess the state of your game as you're heading into the week.
SERGIO GARCIA: Yes. Well, it's like you said, only missed one cut but, unfortunately, the game hasn't been where I expect it. Played nicely at the Match Play, finishing 4th there but other than that, it's just been middle of the pack pretty much every week.
Just that point in the stage of my game at the moment where I seem to play well two, three rounds or a couple of rounds at least and then I have a couple not so great ones and kind of go back a little bit on the field.
I'm just hoping to keep getting a little better, keep working on it. Hopefully get some confidence and see if we can start getting back to where we feel we should be.
DOUG MILNE: Okay. We'll open it up for a few questions.

Q. You talked about familiarity, talked about the idea of having your hand on this course. Today you actually went out and played it. Did the course treat you well? Did it help you at all?
SERGIO GARCIA: No. Like I said before, it's a very challenging course. It tests every single part of your game and that's what we wanted to try to do and we managed -- managed to come out fairly well.
I think that it's the kind of course that you have to be very patient on because if you lose your head a little bit, you can start hitting in the desert or the outer areas and struggle quite a bit.
You have to play smart, know that there's some birdie opportunities out there but there's not a whole lot so if you make a lot of pars and a couple birdies here and there, you usually going to be in pretty good shape. It's supposed to be fairly windy, too, so it's not going to make it easy.

Q. I know you played a lot at LaCantera. Ernie Els said it was birdie fest at the other place. You're talking to your other players out there, LaCantera and then there's this course.
What are you telling the other players?
SERGIO GARCIA: Well, I think looking at it LaCantera was a fine golf course to play. Overall, this is a much better golf course, this is a better test of golf. This is not just a putting contest.
Here, you're going to have to make a lot of putts for pars. LaCantera, you had to make a lot of putts for birdie or eagle. It's a little bit different, a bit more challenging.
I think a guy that is playing well is going to love this course because he's going to feel like, you know, if he plays his own game and just kind of plugs along and makes par, par here and then a couple birdies and then more pars, stuff like that, he's not going to be going backwards.
A guy that has a good long game is going to enjoy it because it's going to take a little bit of pressure off his short game, probably, and, you know, the guys that might be struggling a little bit, they're going to have to be sharp around the greens to stay in contention. We'll see how it goes.

Q. Also, you said at the beginning it might be more difficult than you expected?
SERGIO GARCIA: We knew it was going to be a challenging golf course. We didn't want it -- like we said before, we didn't want to make it a chip and putt golf course. It probably -- yeah, probably came out just slightly tougher than we expected it.
Also depends on the weather conditions. If it's blowing any course that is firm like this one is playing is going to become a little bit tougher.
So with calm conditions, it will be a challenging course but it will be one that it will be a little bit easier. You have some holes -- if there's not much wind you have some holes you can attack. You have two short par-4s, the 16th hole is a fairly short par 3 and you have some short par-4s but with this wind, obviously some of those short par-4s get a little longer and some of the longer ones get a little shorter. Kind of mix it up a little bit.

Q. Is there something design out there when you were with the amateurs today, "Look at that, that was my idea"? Is there an example of something on the golf course that the guys can blame you for?
SERGIO GARCIA: No. I mean I wouldn't go that far. I mean I think that there were a lot of ideas put together. One of probably -- probably the biggest input I had was probably on 16. Not on the green, the green was Greg's idea.
But putting different tees and making that lefty box, that was one of my thoughts to kind of change the angle of the hole and with that bunker in the middle I guess that now having three different angles on the tees, one on the far right, one in the middle, one on the far left you can play with pin positions, tee boxes and everything and kind of make the hole feel like it plays different everyday. On a par 3 that's great to have.
But other than that, just little things with bunkers and maybe things around the greens, chipping areas, stuff like that. But, overall, it was a lot of good ideas but together.

Q. Is 16 your idea or how did that happen?
SERGIO GARCIA: Like I said before, that was Greg's idea. He wanted to do that. He thought that it would be a little bit different like it is at Riviera, a little bit unique in some way:
I mean fine, I think the idea is good. Let's mix it up a little bit so it's not kind of like just like Riviera. Riviera only has one tee box and that's it.
I thought, why don't we make different tee boxes so you can change the hole, the angle going to the hole in three different ways and that way, you know, it's even more unique.
Yeah, I think it came out nicely.

Q. Is there a hole that you like the best? You have played it now. Is there one that came out where you said, "This is going to be a hole that might actually decide things"?
SERGIO GARCIA: Well, if it's tight, the last three holes are always going to decide things. I think that like I said before, there's a lot of great looking holes out there. I think that the work they did with the terrain we had worked nicely with it.

I think the 4th hole is a very good, very good challenging golf hole. It's a great driving hole. You can see.
What I like about the golf course is you can pretty much on any tee box, you can see where you're hitting other than maybe 18 a little bit, you know, you can see all the fairways going, you can see the shape of it, you can -- you have the bunkers that help you kind of get an idea of what the hole is going and where to land it.
So I think that it came out really, really good and -- but, like I said, probably 4 -- I like the short par-4s. I like the 5th hole and the 17th. It's a good mix of holes there.

Q. Is collaborating with the designer something you think you would want to do again?
SERGIO GARCIA: With Greg?

Q. Or someone else.
SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I enjoy golf course design. I think that at the moment for me to do it just by myself, it's too much because it takes a lot of time. People don't realize, they think design a golf course is just making a drawing and I want the hole to do this and that's it. No.
It's a big -- lot of things that go through it and probably one of the most difficult things is when you get to a spot and it's full of trees and bushes and you say okay, I see a dogleg left here. I mean at the moment when I've done it with Greg and he's like, "Yeah, I can perfectly see little hole going this way." I'm like thinking, "How do you see that through the trees" (laughter)? But it's just something that you get as you get more into it.
But, like I said before, I want to concentrate on my golf. I'm still young. But I want to have a couple codesigns projects here and there to be doing throughout couple of years and stuff like that. So that's how I got into it.

Q. Did you do much player recruiting talking about the new course with the players?
SERGIO GARCIA: Did I -- did I ask the players? Well, I mean some guys, when it opened, I know guys like Joe Ogilvie came and played it. He told me he really liked it. He said, "I think you guys did a great job. It's good, it's challenging but it's" -- "it looks really nice" and things like that. I didn't -- I asked a couple of guys here and there if they played it and stuff and you know, the comments have been good. So, it's been very positive. That's important.
DOUG MILNE: All right. Sergio, congratulations on the course and best of luck this week. We appreciate your time.
SERGIO GARCIA: Thank you.

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