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THE BARCLAYSAugust 25, 2010Ernie ElsPARAMUS, NEW JERSEY THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Ernie Els into the interview room, our current FedEx Cup leader. He's been that for quite a while. Ernie, tremendous season, two victories. Comment about your season and about your goals for the week. ERNIE ELS: I had a good start to my season, obviously. And won two golf tournaments in March, and I had a couple of top 10s, top 5s, and I had the right people win different tournaments for me to stay on top, I guess. So I'm in pretty fortunate position where I am right now. I'm taking quite a few nice points into the next four events. But, as you guys know, this tournament itself has got two-and-a-half thousand points, and I've got 1800 points all season. Totally different ball game the next four weeks. So it's very important for me to play well. Like it is for everybody else. But for me to keep a lead or enhance my lead, I need to play really well this week. And I'm in a good position to do that. So I'd like to do that. I had a question earlier, you know, do I feel like the guy being hunted? I don't feel like it yet, because I think there's so many points available and there's so many guys that can make moves. I think by the TOUR championship, you can feel like maybe guys are coming after you. I think more than anything, I think we're hunting points. And that's what we're here for. Any way to get a lot of points is to play good golf. THE MODERATOR: I know we're at a different golf course this year but two top 4 finishes in this tournament over the last few years. Talk about your expectations for the week. ERNIE ELS: They've moved the tournament around a little bit the last couple of years. Obviously the last year I enjoyed it. Some of the guys didn't like the course too much. But I kind of liked it. And I was only one shot out of maybe being in the playoff. The last time we were here, I missed the cut. So I'd like to do something better than that. I've had pretty good practice. And I'm looking forward to a good week. It's going to be a very sloppy, long week. But I love what Barclays does in golf. They sponsor golf tournaments around the world, and this is another big one. So we've got to appreciate that. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Wondered if you could comment on Jim's disqualification this morning, your thoughts about it? ERNIE ELS: It was a bit of surprise. Obviously a bit of a shock, I would say. I'm not exactly sure what happened. I heard the rumor out there from the marshals. Obviously he was late to the Pro-Am. He paid the ultimate penalty being late to the Pro-Am. You probably know much more than I do. He's obviously had his reasons why he was late. It was very unfortunate. Jim is the ultimate professional, if there is one out there. He's the ultimate professional. And he always does things the right way. So something must have happened. But unfortunately we have rules and obviously going against him. So it's very unfortunate. And he must be very disappointed because he's played some great golf. So he has to wait another week to play. Maybe be it a long system or something. I'm not sure what happened. I'm sure he overslept or something. Q. Ernie, there are several courses that have hosted this tournament in this area, Westchester here, Liberty National, Plainfield; do you have a favorite at those courses and what type of course would you like to play here? ERNIE ELS: I normally like these old traditional type golf courses like Ridgewood and Westchester. I actually did a company day at Plainfield a couple of years ago. So that's another great old layout. So I love those. As I say, I missed the cut last time and I missed the Liberty National course. It's not a traditional course if you know what I mean. I like coming up here. We don't get the opportunity to come to New York very often. We're close to the city so we can get in there if we want to. It's just a fun area to be in. People love the sport up here and they can get quite vocal at times. But I enjoy the older type golf courses. They have Tillinghast golf courses and Donald Ross, great designers up here. Q. Knowing where you were in this in regards to the playoffs, did you take any different approaches to these four weeks, maybe within the last month or so because you knew where you were? ERNIE ELS: Yeah, I have. I didn't have a very good European Tour when I was over there. I really didn't play good golf. So when I came back over here to the states, I really felt like I needed to get my game back in shape, which I did. I had a very good three days at the Bridgestone and then the last day I kind of fell out of the bus and I felt like I played pretty good golf at Whistling Straits, but I didn't get to scoring very well. So I feel my game is coming. And I felt an urgency to start playing good golf, because I haven't done that since June, really. So you need to be on your game in these next four weeks. The point system is so crazy that if you don't play well, you're going to get left behind, basically. So I felt an urgency to get my game back in shape, yes. And as I said before, I got fortunate. I think Martin Kaymer at the PGA and I had certain guys win for me to stay up there, basically. So as I said I'm taking a 1,800 points into the next four weeks, and I can really get into a much better -- even much better position if I play really good golf. And I can go backwards very quickly if I don't play good golf. And I think that's what the organizers, what the sponsors needed, is to really have big changes in the next four weeks, which could really happen. Q. Have you had a chance to see Essex, which is another course that's in consideration for future tournaments here? And if it goes back to Liberty, do you think the greens need to be looked at? ERNIE ELS: I haven't played the Essex golf course. And I think Liberty, that's the type of course where people are going to either like it or hate it; there's no in between. And maybe I liked it because I played well and I had a good finish there. I think the clubhouse is unbelievable. I think where it is, the location, it's just unbelievable. But, yeah, if I have to criticize it, yeah, there's a couple things that need to be changed and some of the greens need to be looked at. But I think for a location, for a golf tournament, you can't have too many better ones not in this area. Q. To follow up on the Furyk thing, obviously it's a rule but the playoff which is a new system in comparison to the normal regular season, it seems like when you got a guy that's No. 3 in the playoffs, it hurts the sponsor. It hurts the system, it hurts everybody. Do you think maybe in the playoff situation we should be looking for -- shouldn't get a free pass but maybe something different if your Pro-Am time gets missed? ERNIE ELS: You get penalized points or something, maybe. You know, we can make an argument about this one, absolutely. I think especially in Jim Furyk's case. He's been out here like myself almost 20 years now. And he hasn't put a foot wrong that I can think of. He's the ultimate professional. He spends a lot of time with his playing partners when he plays Pro-Ams, and he does clinics. He does a lot of stuff for the TOUR that benefits the TOUR. So you could definitely have an argument to somehow help a player, especially when he's qualified for the playoffs in this position. They've written that rule for the regular season, as you say. And we've seen a couple of players being disqualified on that rule. I remember Retief, who is another guy who is unbelievable, never think of Retief doing anything wrong either, and I think John Daly did it at Bay Hill a couple of years ago. So there's been cases like that, and sure you can have an argument to say, okay, these are the playoffs. We should have different set of rules out here, maybe. And if you're going to have the guy play, missing his Pro-Am, you know, put in a rule -- maybe this is the start of a new rule. Because I don't think anybody thought about this to be honest with you. I didn't think about it. Now that it's happened, maybe we should reevaluate the rules for the playoff system, maybe. Maybe penalize him some points or something, I don't know. Q. Earlier this year you had a direct influence on Louis Oosthuizen winning at the Open. I had a chance to talk to Martin Kaymer this week, and right out of the box he said you were his influence, not only by the way you played, but by the way you handled yourself. As a seasoned veteran, I don't want to call you old, you leaving this kind of legacy, this mark on the PGA TOUR, how gratifying is it for you to have some young guys come out and say that? ERNIE ELS: Well, thanks. You're stroking me nicely this morning. Q. I'm your softball buddy. ERNIE ELS: Louie is a great guy. And I was fortunate enough to have parents who could afford me to play in tournaments and send me around the world to play. And that's how I got better. And there are a lot of kids out there who don't have the opportunity who have the same or more talent than have. You have to always hone people's skills. And Louie was one of those kids, a great kid. And for him to travel around -- I mean, the exchange rate from South African rand to the U.S. dollar is eight times. So for a guy to fly out of South Africa to come and play for a month or so, you know it will cost you close to half a million rand. So that's a lot of money. We brought him in and we got lucky, basically. I never thought he was going to be this good. I don't think he thought that either. So shows you what a little bit of help can do for a kid taking all the pressure off and then Chubby [Chandler] and his crew got their hands on him and I think they've done a pretty good job, too. Q. On Martin, what I was saying to you he didn't have that direct contact with you, but right out of the box he said that you were an influence because you didn't have that direct -- but he had that influence on you, but the way you handled yourself off the course he wanted to model himself that way. What does that mean to you when you see young guys saying that? ERNIE ELS: Well, it makes you feel old. But it makes you feel good, because that's the way I looked at Gary Player. And I'm sure Gary -- I looked at him as a young player. He probably thought he was still ready to play. So it's my time, it's my turn to give back like Gary did, like other players did. And I think if you get to a certain stage of your career, it's time to turn and give back. And I think it's just a natural progression where your career goes. But I appreciate that. Q. You took the FedExCup lead pretty early in the season. When did you start zeroing in, hey, I could be No. 1 going into the playoffs. And, two, have you looked at a lot of the calculations and permutations of all that, or is that something that you really got into? ERNIE ELS: No, I mean, obviously you start off a season not thinking about winning the FedExCup. I think you start a season off to try and find form. Majors are still very important for me. And try and get my game in shape for those. I really got on to great form in March winning. And obviously getting in the lead. As I say, I think certain people won, and certain people didn't win. And I had a couple of good finishes. Third in Texas and third at the U.S. Open, which helped my points. And I find myself with 1800 points now. And that's good enough to take the lead into here. But now it's a different ball game. It's basically a race now. The race is on. The race starts now. There's basically, what is it, 10,000 points all of a sudden for the next four weeks. So there's a lot of points in four weeks. I'm not sure what the number of points was if you played unbelievable. Say if you won six, seven times how many points you would have to now. Probably 3,000 points. So that means these four weeks just means so much more. But I have 1800 points and the guy that's 125th probably has 600 points, 700 points. So there's a big difference there still. So if I can have a good week, yeah, I can even have more points -- maybe gain a lead. I don't want to think about it. I just want to think about playing good, see where we are. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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