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WGC BRIDGESTONE INVITATIONALAugust 3, 2010Stuart ApplebyAKRON, OHIO COLIN MURRAY: Stuart Appleby, thanks for joining us here in the interview room at the Bridgestone Invitational. Congratulations on last week's victory at the Greenbrier and on the fifth 59 in the PGA TOUR history. If you can talk about what your last couple days have been like and getting back in the field here at the Bridgestone Invitational for I believe the 11th consecutive time. STUART APPLEBY: I don't think I've missed -- since we've ever played here, yeah. COLIN MURRAY: Or 12. STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, I don't think I've missed a year. Last couple days have been pretty quiet. Monday just relaxed, caught up with some family, grandparents, and just tooled around, checked a few emails. I had a few more emails than normal, a few more texts than normal, and I spoke to my parents Sunday night and spoke to them this morning. But it was pretty quiet. I've got three kids, so once I left the tournament about 10:00 I got home late and just had a couple of quiet beers and was in bed by 1:00. Q. With the thought of that streak being broken, of all your appearances here, I'm just wondering how important it was for you to get back here. STUART APPLEBY: Hmm, it wasn't important for me to get back here. It was important for me to get back into form. I didn't want to miss here, and really, I guess I thought that -- well, I knew I wasn't going to be here, and I said, well, okay, off to Turning Stone. I was going to look forward to that week. But I'm not sure how I got in here. I knew how I got in the PGA by having enough money up, but I have no idea how I got in here, but I really wasn't going to ask that question. I got invited back, so I'm back. It's great to be here. It's ten years this year, this week, of the tournament that I met Ashley, so that was sort of our anniversary. So yeah, nice to not have that broken, that run of events here. You know, I missed out on Augusta this year. That was my first missed major, and then obviously got in the U.S. Open and missed the British, and I would have loved to have gotten my way into the British to play there. I've never missed a British since my first one in '97. I was hoping to illuminate the -- my used-to-be regular tournaments and get back into making them regulars again, so it was good to get back here for sure. Q. Can you run us through how you went from the depths of a slump to 59, and what were the keys of clawing out of that? STUART APPLEBY: How do I run you through it? Well, when I was feeling like it was all very difficult and wondering who I was as a player before and how did I get to that level and then how did I get to a lower level, a much lower level, I knew there was enough good things there to build that person back. You know, everybody has got to have levels of low, and I guess the levels might be multiple, they might be longer. You know, my career had generally been on a slow and gradual move up since I turned professional. There was nothing fast and furious and explosive about it. But certainly having a quiet period after a number of good years was a test of will, a test of getting out of a hole, fighting out of it, and also experiencing things line that that I had not experienced for that level of time. So that certainly gave me a lot of time thinking about where I wanted to be and maybe how I got to being to the level golfer I was and the things that cause those things to drop off. I just had to refocus. I thought, I'm getting pushed out of the majors, I'm not in all the world events, and I was becoming a regular in my mind of those events, and I wanted to get back to that level of golf I was in, being in the Top 30, being in the TOUR Championships, and that wasn't in my cards the previous years. I wanted to get back to having those in my schedule and taking the top-career Money List exemption, so I think that would free things up to make sure that was an opportunity to get back to that level, and that really wasn't working out for me in the early part of the year. Now we're in the latter part of season, maybe in the last couple months, I had seen some proper form come back. I still kept thinking, I've got to get to Top 30, get back to the TOUR Championship, that's going to get me in all the majors and get my back. That's how I measure myself. Now that I'm in there now I've got a lot of work to do to improve or maintain that position to get myself in all the majors next year. I've got all that worked out. That leaves me maybe not as fresh physically as I would love to be to get into those playoffs because I'm going two more weeks. But mentally a pep-up, so I'm feeling more excited about finishing the year off. Q. Was the climb out more swing, short game, more mental? STUART APPLEBY: Probably mental, most of it. I don't think -- there was some swing things, but they're always floating around. Mental, yeah, I just had to be a bit aware of my tension levels. When you start pushing, you start getting more tense. You don't tend to be aware of those levels, as well, when you're tense. You're just going in a circle and chasing your tail and you think you're doing the right things. I was also in a long stint of golf, so I was probably very competitive. I knew how to just play, and I wasn't practicing overly hard. I was just sort of doing a lot of playing. So I guess walking up and hitting a shot was sort of almost automatic. But I'd say mentally I had to work hard on just staying focused, knowing that if I'm in a slump the only one way to go is up, and the only way from up is down. So that's how it works. Tiger has talked about low patches, and all you try and do is make them as sort of short-term as you can. This one for me went for quite a while, so now I've got to use this to fuel on. But I would say that I put it mostly down to mental adjustments and work. Not a single thing. I did go left-hand low in my putting, and the putt started to feel very nice the last few weeks, and we mixed that with tension levels in my arms and so on, and the swing started to feel a bit better too. Q. I know last week after you holed your last putt you knew you hadn't won yet but you had this look of steely-like determination. It looked like you weren't satisfied with the 59. Was that because it wasn't over? STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, that was a fair assessment. Yeah, I had shot the number, but I knew that I had to make the putt to probably get into a playoff. So I knew it was important equally for potentially winning the tournament and shooting the number. There wasn't one that really outweighed. And the game wasn't over. If that had been the last putt to win and I was the last guy on the course to do that, there would be a lot of elation versus just feeling like I've done it but not finished, and then I had a good 30-minute wait plus to find out if that meant anything more than just a round where I finished second or in a playoff or had a 59. Luckily I ticked both boxes. Q. You talked about shooting the number. For those of us who have experienced shooting the number for like 12 holes, can you explain what the sensation is like is you're going along in the round? Is everything just on auto pilot, or is everything just -- you're just muscle memory? Could you just take us through what that's like to shoot that number? STUART APPLEBY: Good question. I mean, it's only something I've done once, so it's hard to use all memory. I got off to a good start with 6-under at the turn. I looked at that and thought, where does that put me, what would I need to do to get to potentially win this tournament outright without a playoff, and I thought, if I shot another 6 on the back, that would be 12-under. That's pretty low. But yeah, that would win it. I thought, well, okay, there's a lot of opportunity. If I shot 6 on the front and it didn't seem that difficult, then I guess I could do it again. I didn't know, of course, no clue at all, you can probably birdie the next because that's driver, lob wedge. You can't even get that far ahead of yourself. And then I eagled 12 and thought, right, I'm on pace here, I'm on record pace. I thought, there's plenty -- there's nothing at the end of that round that's going to stand out to be a real test if I'm playing any good. There's no 500-yard par-4s, there's birdie opportunities there, the course was very benign. I had an opportunity after the par-5 and just misread the putt or just hit the putt a little high, thought I made it, just missed it. Then on the next I hit another good putt. I thought, I'm running out of holes here to get to this 50-something score. I thought, well, just got to keep hitting it close and see if I can make putts and putts seemed to just come to me. I was happy with the idea of shooting 59. It was in my mind probably around the turn once I shot 6-under, I thought, I can do this. This can happen. And at the same time, it also had to happen because it was -- obviously looking back it was what I had to shoot to even obviously win the tournament at all. I sort of had two motivating forces. One was to try and chase and one was to also do something a bit unique. Q. It had been a long time since you had broken 65. I guess that doesn't even come into the equation when you get to 6-under through nine holes? STUART APPLEBY: No, I hadn't even shot 6-under for nine holes for years probably. The course was receptive and I was playing well, I was putting fantastic. I felt like every putt I was going to hit was going to be quality. I've had those feelings before, and you make half of them, the other half might lip out. It's a game of inches. But I just felt like every time I was going to hit the putt, it was going to be a good one, and every time I looked up, it was the right one. There was no looking back and thinking about my past or what I've done before, it was just going with what was working and what was feeling good. There was no, this is the lowest round I've ever shot, I'm going to break the record books, whatever. It was just go, go, go. The real test for me now would be to play like that with a four-shot lead or a six-shot lead, to be that same player, to feel like that player and do those sort of things. It's not easy to shoot a 59, but it sort of feels easy because everything just happens like you want it to happen, which is rare in the game. Yeah, it's really hard to describe it. I just felt very relaxed. I walked a lot slower Sunday than I probably normally do. I slowed myself down a lot, and I think that kept me a little bit more in the rhythm of how I was thinking and actually how I was playing the game. Q. What's your take on what's going on with golf? We've had two 59s on the PGA TOUR in a month after not having one in eleven years, a kid last week in Alabama junior golf shot 57, Nationwide Pro-Am, 56, Rho, 58. What's your take on what's going on? STUART APPLEBY: Well, there's a common theme. The golfers aren't any better. We're getting better each year, but course preparation and weather is everything. But if all the courses that those numbers were shot on were obviously very soft, probably very benign, the conditions from a wind point of view. Just very receptive. I certainly had that. Those weather conditions, shooting those in conditions that are 10, 15 mile an hour breeze, there's too much -- the weather plays such a huge role. That course we played last week in the breeze, that was tricky, and when the breeze was down, it was easy. You saw the scores on Sunday, if you even par, you fell off the leaderboard. I don't think that'll be the case next year. They'll have the course firmed up next year and get the greens firm and fast. Those scores were maybe just a little bit of pot luck. John Deere, I played with Steve Stricker that day, Steve also shot a 60, just made everything. You have to make everything, and you can only do that on basically receptive greens. None of these rounds are shot on firm greens, I can assure you of that. Pretty tough to do. I don't know how many 59s have been shot around the world, but the U.S. has pretty soft golf courses, and when you start slapping it around the flag, you can start banging them in the hole. Q. How much carryover when you shoot a 59 going into the next tournament, and you said it was so mental, have you reached that place where you're mentally confident now? STUART APPLEBY: I could be funny and say every round after that is going to feel like I'm playing bad. But I'll be realistic. The 59 is behind me and it doesn't happen very often, and I'll just be getting back to shooting more normal scores that you might see. Hopefully good ones, but I'm not expecting rounds to be 65 for the next two months or anything like that. But what I'd like to really take from it is what I did well last week and how I thought and what I felt and the things I did there, because I know that's really what created an opportunity for me on Sunday and I know that will give me an opportunity when the tournament develops every week and getting into the weekend. Those are the things I need to be thinking of. Q. I have to ask a corny local question. Are you and Ashley going back to LeFever's or anything? I don't know if there's still a restaurant. STUART APPLEBY: I don't know. I do whatever my wife says (laughter). Q. It's called The River now, same place, same location. STUART APPLEBY: I think we're going place tonight and having just a gathering, celebration. But I'm certainly more appreciative now of wins, I think. My win on Sunday than maybe I have of other wins because I'd guess they were close enough together where you don't get to feel the -- I guess the lows you were talking about. I think we'll probably have dinner tonight somewhere and just move on and back to the same old. Q. Harrington was just here, and he was talking about the PGA TOUR doesn't seem to be a good breeding ground for young Americans anymore because the international field is so strong. I didn't know if you had any thought on that. He's talking about you have like the cream of the crop from the international world and then they're trying to break through against a field like that? STUART APPLEBY: Well, I don't know much about the college system. The U.S. has unbelievable facilities around the country starting off golf from a young age through high school and so on. The amount of competition just dwarfs what we have in Australia. I think the university system develops golfers to play well at a college level. I don't think it's probably as holistic and futuristic as it needs to be. I think in Australia we've fallen asleep at the wheel over a few years now that we're not using enough communication to improve our quality of future golfers, looking far enough ahead to have a guy at 25 and make him a professional golfer on the world tour on a high level. The swings of the players probably aren't very mechanically really sound, that many of them, but they have amazing short games you've ever seen because of pure competition. You're going to have your Sean O'Hairs and those guys always around. The question is always to develop the depth, certainly in Europe, certainly the UK guys in the recent five years, South Africans, as well, from places where you think, it's got some pretty ordinary weather, and they play on this Tour now and I think what they've done is phenomenal. In Australia we still have some great players. The U.S. is going to want to be a dominating force from a golf point of view, but certainly that final five years of golfing education and all that -- once they're about to leave to come to the big world of the TOUR I think is critical in the development of a player in those first years. Q. You mentioned that this is like an anniversary for you. Do you feel it is kind of a home course advantage here? STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, well, I know the course very well. I've had some good performances here. I think it was a couple years ago I finished second. I think Vijay won that year. Yeah, I know the course well. I don't need to play it much more. Very familiar, yes. I know how to get here. It looks really -- I feel like a local from that extent, more than any -- maybe Augusta is really the only other tournament where I feel like you're going back to somewhere you've been so much before. I can't think of another tournament that feels so familiar. Q. How about as far as having like your family around? STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. This is definitely an extended family this week. Every player has one of those at one tournament or another throughout the year, but this is definitely mine. Q. Based on what you've learned during this impressive climb of yours, what comes first, confidence or good shots or good shots and then confidence? STUART APPLEBY: That's a good question. Yeah, hitting good shots, okay. So I can hit some good shots. I guess hitting more and more in a row really validates that you're swinging the club well, and then you can assess whether you're putting well by how good a quality putts you're hitting. I think as a player you want to create opportunities, but if you're not making putts, the question is how much are you missing them by. If you're skirting the hole -- I remember when I won -- missed the cut at Doral in '97, I can't remember how I was hitting it, okay, okay, but I just lipped out every hole. It was like I had 36 lip-outs, and the next week, I thought, well, I'm putting well, and then all of a sudden on the range I found something and off I went. So I wasn't too concerned, and then I won the next week at the Honda. I've been putting well lately, been hitting it better, been seeing more of the golfer that I wanted to be, but I was also getting a bit tired mentally. Everything was good, but it was, I don't know if I'm ready to win. But at the same time, I think I played so much that I just got into the routine of playing. I didn't have that, well, I'm going to be out for three weeks and I'll take two off or anything like that. But I think you need to practice with your confidence. You need to develop that on the range. You need to have that on the range, and then you carry that to the course and you make it valid from there. You don't try and find it on the golf course. You'll never find anything on a golf course. You can make it valid and then the more the pressure or the more times that you -- not should be feeling pressure, that you could succumb to the pressure, the more you can rely on something that's tested and proven. I think that's what Tiger keeps saying, put myself in position on the back nine and test myself, and that's sort of it for sure. COLIN MURRAY: Stuart, thanks for your time. Play well this week. End of FastScripts |
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