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HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONSJanuary 6, 2011Carl PetterssonKAPALUA, HAWAII JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Carl Pettersson into the interview room after a 7-under par 66, just one bogey on the card and eight birdies. That's a nice way to start 2011. CARL PETTERSSON: Yeah, it was good. I played nice all day and made one stupid bogey, but that sort of happens in every round. Yeah, I hit my irons great and made the putts, and it's a great combination to have. JOHN BUSH: Take us through hole No. 6, the bogey. CARL PETTERSSON: I hit a pretty good drive down the hill and only had 58 yards left and had a kind of -- I don't know if you're familiar with the hole, but it's a downhill lie and I just chunked my flop shot and I didn't get up-and-down, and it was a weak bogey. But you know, that's all right. It's going to happen. JOHN BUSH: Fourth trip here. You won last year at the RBC Canadian Open. Talk about the start of the season and your expectations for this year. CARL PETTERSSON: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the season. I've practiced more probably this after season than I ever have before. Got a new golf ball in play, Nike 20XI X. It's longer off the tee and it's better around the greens, so I'm excited. Game felt good in practice but you never know how it's going to be in the tournament, and it seems to be good so far. Q. It was pretty calm out there by Kapalua standards. Did you have any particular goal in your sights score-wise today? CARL PETTERSSON: Well, I felt like you had to shoot at least 4-under today. I've played here before when it was windy. In the wind the golf course is pretty tough. Today if you played well and made the putts, you were going to shoot low. There's plenty of birdie chances. It's unusual to see Kapalua play this way. I was fortunate to be able to take advantage of it. Q. It's been since 2001 since an American won here. There's a lot of Americans on the leaderboard right now. In your mind is there any rhyme or reason why it's been nine straight wins by non-Americans? CARL PETTERSSON: I think the Australians do well here because they have their season in their off-season. They go back to Australia and play a few events, so they're sort of -- they're not quite as tournament rusty as the rest of us are. But things change. There's ebb and flow with winning, I think. I don't know. That's why I think a lot of Australian winners. But yeah, who knows. I don't know why that is. Q. Is today as easy as you've ever seen this course play? CARL PETTERSSON: Actually last time I was here there was one day like this. You've still got to do it, but yeah, it's definitely not like the other times I've been here where it's blowing 20, 25. I actually think it's a very difficult golf course when the wind is blowing. It's tough to make the putts. When you're putting with the wind blowing you have to play the break and the wind. It's a totally different animal today versus it blowing 25 miles per hour. Q. Your birdies seemed to come in bunches today. Is there a reason for that? CARL PETTERSSON: I don't know. I got on a roll. It's nice when that happens. I don't know why that happened, but I'm glad it did. Q. What did the rain this morning do to the course? Did it make it easier, harder, just different? CARL PETTERSSON: Well, it makes some holes easier and some holes harder, like 17 I hit driver, rescue. I had 259 I think to the pin. I didn't hit a great drive. So some holes it's easier and other holes play really long with this type of wind. 18 is actually pretty hard because you have to hit a really good drive to be able to kind of knock it over that little hazard. But overall, yeah, the greens were softer and the fairways were a little bit softer, too. Overall it played easier, yeah. Q. What do you do on 17? CARL PETTERSSON: Maybe 6-iron in there, I think. Q. A typical 6-iron? CARL PETTERSSON: Yeah, if the wind gets going, but it's pretty soft this year compared to other years. Q. Would you rather see it blow? CARL PETTERSSON: No. Q. Stuart was saying sometimes when the wind doesn't blow it actually makes a lot of the holes longer. CARL PETTERSSON: Yeah, definitely, like 17, 18. Some other holes. Q. 12? CARL PETTERSSON: 12, yeah. It's not that long of a hole anyway. But I don't mind the wind, I just don't like when it's ridiculous, when on putts you have to play the break and the wind, which you have to do sometimes here. But I know it's not going to be calm the rest of the week probably. If I was a betting man I'd say it's going to blow one of the days. Or two or three of the days. JOHN BUSH: Let's go through the card. Birdie on No. 3? CARL PETTERSSON: Yeah, driver, sand wedge to ten feet. 4, driver, sand wedge to five feet. 5, driver, 6-iron, two-putt. No. 10, driver, sand iron to six feet. 11, 7-iron to 20 feet. 12, driver, lob wedge to seven feet. 14, 3-wood, lob wedge to three feet. 18, driver, 3-wood, sand iron, eight feet. Q. Why didn't you hit 3-wood on 14? CARL PETTERSSON: I did. 14 up the hill? 3-wood -- Q. Why didn't you? CARL PETTERSSON: I did hit 3-wood. Q. Why didn't you hit driver? CARL PETTERSSON: Because it's too narrow for me. Q. Great start today obviously. Any thoughts about when you get to Sunday afternoon what kind of number it's going to take to win this thing? CARL PETTERSSON: I haven't even thought about it yet. Today is just the first day, and I'll deal with that as it happens on Sunday with nine to go. There's no point sort of looking ahead. I've done that before; you've just got to play one day at a time. I know it sounds boring, but that's the way to do it. Q. I forgot to ask this and maybe you already answered, but when was your last tournament? CARL PETTERSSON: HSBC, China. Q. You had a good two months off? CARL PETTERSSON: Yeah, I worked hard on my game, but I found a feeling with my swing in China and I took one week off and then I pretty much practiced nearly every day. Probably worked harder on my game this off-season than I've done any other off-season. Q. What did you find? CARL PETTERSSON: Just a little feeling, I started gripping my left hand stronger, kind of raising my hands at address and through impact turning my hips through harder and started hitting it kind of like I used to. I wanted to keep that feeling going, so I kept playing all off-season. Q. When you say practice every day, what do you mean by that? CARL PETTERSSON: Do something, hit balls for a couple hours, two, three hours, play. Some days I'd practice five hours, some days I'd practice one hour. I kind of kept it going. I went to Florida a few times, I practiced with Charles Howell. That was pretty much from dawn to dusk with him. I had a couple golf trips with some buddies, and we played. I was busy, yeah. Q. How does that compare with say your two months off the year before, a couple years before that? CARL PETTERSSON: Then I would have probably taken a month off and then practiced for the second month. Q. Where did you go with your buddies? CARL PETTERSSON: We went to Calusa Pines down in Naples and played, and then we went to play the Dye Preserve and McArthur, and then I played at home different places, Eagle Point Country Club, Hasentree and picked a few different places. JOHN BUSH: Carl, we appreciate your time. End of FastScripts |
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