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SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 14, 2011

Stuart Appleby

HONOLULU, HAWAII

JOHN BUSH: Stuart Appleby joins us here in the interview room after a 6-under par 64 to open up the Sony Open in Hawai'i. Stuart, tremendous round, but just comment on a great day.
STUART APPLEBY: Back nine was my -- I teed off on 1. The front nine, pretty plain, lots of pars, nothing special, just birdied 9, which was very accessible today. It was only a driver and probably 220-odd yards, 240 yards in.
Made a pretty simple chip and up-and-down on 12 and made it, so that sort of freshened up that very methodical par, par, par I had that I had for a couple hours on the front nine.
Then birdied the next. That was the best hole I probably played for the day normally. Good drive, good 2-iron to about ten feet and made a birdie there, and that was on 13. So the round certainly picked up at that point.
And then I managed to par the next couple of holes and then hit a 5-iron into 16. I don't know exactly the yardage. Someone quoted me, mentioned it before to me, just a little knock-down 5-iron, breeze wasn't blowing very much. It looked pretty good. I just got a bit lucky because it landed right of the hole. I'm not quite sure how it went left because I didn't hook it in there, and that went in.
And then made probably a good, I don't know, probably 30-plus footer on 17 and then didn't capitalize on 18, it being pretty accessible par-5. Although it was 3-wood in, a good chance for birdie.
So a very quick two hours, less than two hours really went from a pretty plain round to a good round.
JOHN BUSH: Stuart, not the best of weeks for you last week by your standards at Kapalua. Talk about that week and your expectations for this week.
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, very. The topography of these two courses is just so opposite, very hard to -- if you're not making putts early in the week, getting a good read on the greens, this week is a bit different. Everything is a bit more normal, sort of fits your eye.
Certainly last week I hit a couple putts that even the speed and line weren't even right. Usually you can get one of them right. It's tough. But I was disappointed with my performance last week. I would have thought that I had better form than that.
But this week I'm feeling pretty relaxed. It's sort of a week that sort of didn't seem to want to start. We couldn't even get a pro-am going. Couldn't even get the first round started. I think we were all a bit sort of anxious to get going, and obviously we're going to really play a lot of golf very quickly here, 36 holes on Sunday. A bit unusual for this place, indeed.
I'd like to keep the momentum going from what I had this morning, and it'll be a bit of a crap shoot Sunday no doubt no matter what's going on on the leaderboard.

Q. Did your first round today remind you at all of 2000?
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah. 2000? Don't remember it. You've got a better memory than me obviously or just made that up, one or the other.
No, I don't remember anything about 2000.

Q. Didn't you have a 66 or something?
STUART APPLEBY: I might have, but I don't know how I did it. Does it remind me? No, I don't have a great memory for looking back on scores. They don't really mean that much to me.
Gary Player can mention numerous whatever rounds and what clubs he hit, and come Sunday, I might be able to remember -- I'll remember hole 17 or 16 but that's probably about all I'll remember.

Q. But 2000 was when you finished runner-up.
STUART APPLEBY: Don't know. Don't know.
JOHN BUSH: He mentioned last week that he didn't remember the 59.
THE WITNESS: I remember bits of the 59. That's worth remembering. I'd have to work hard.
So I can't give you the history angles of my successes or not at Sony and what scores I've shot, but I do remember coming second. I don't remember what year it was. I can't tell you who won that year.

Q. Azinger.
STUART APPLEBY: Yes, he did. I remember he played awesome Sunday, yeah.

Q. Does that jog it at all?
STUART APPLEBY: No.

Q. What putter are you using this week?
STUART APPLEBY: I'm using a 2-ball. Today I made a nice one on 17, but I'm not quite sure whether -- I didn't know whether I wanted a really good day, which gets you staying with a putter, or an ordinary day, so you just move on to the old one. The 2-ball, the Odyssey is the same one, so I haven't really decided what I'm going to do there.

Q. Tempted to go back to the old one?
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, but unfortunately it takes a bad putting round, doesn't it? That means that's in the future.

Q. Give us an idea of the conditions out there, and also, how did you practice the last couple days?
STUART APPLEBY: Actually, yeah, I didn't do much on the Wednesday. Very brief in the rain. And then yesterday actually I went out late in the afternoon for about 20 minutes and just hit sand wedges -- well, not hit, but swung sand wedges on the balcony on the fire exit that overlooked this view here, just sat there with a glove on and just hit -- well, imaginary hitting balls and working on my technique for about 20 minutes and getting a feel for it. That was really my whole practice right there, and I walked about 20 feet back in the door back into my room.

Q. Worked up a sweat?
STUART APPLEBY: I did work up a sweat. It was sunny. That was it. Some guys went to ranges nearby. I just didn't have that motivation to do that.

Q. And the conditions out there?
STUART APPLEBY: Oh, conditions, yes. They were very -- it was very heavy, very sort of unlike this place. There was a lot of debris, which was grass floating around what was puddles. You see the remnants of a lot of water. I was up on the balcony looking at all the water the other day, and it just never disappeared for a long time yesterday even though it hadn't rained much. Amazing that eventually they either pumped it out or gravity got rid of it, but it was very, very long, greens were a lot slower than normal but still very true.
I didn't get in any bunkers. The bunkers looked well drained, well prepared. It definitely didn't get a mow on it so was looking a bit grown over, so I'm sure the staff will be looking forward to getting a cut on it tonight to sort of freshen it up, otherwise you could even be getting fliers -- you could get fliers in the fairway. I'm not sure how long they'll play the ball down for. I imagine maybe today might be it.

Q. You were taking pictures pretty early yesterday, weren't you?
STUART APPLEBY: I'm up early. I don't know what I was doing early taking pictures. Depends on what you call early. If it's sunrise, that's not that early for me.

Q. Obviously Kapalua is a course that you have a lot of confidence on and a lot of success. Where would you rank this course in terms of your confidence level? It's such a different course.
STUART APPLEBY: Yeah, it's nothing special, this golf course, but it makes you play. It demands your attention. The layout is nothing special, but when it blows here, it's a good golf course. It's a real sneaky good golf course. The greens are always in beautiful, beautiful shape. You have to drive -- you have to position your ball properly. You have to have length control really, really good. That has to be of high importance. Very, very different.
I've obviously had some wins at Kapalua and come here on a high and haven't managed to perform that good since the following week being here those years.
But look, after my win late last year, I don't really care when you have wins. I don't think it really matters anymore. Wins are wins. If you have a couple early in the year, like Geoff did there, Ogilvy, not long ago it was -- that's great. It makes you feel like, okay, the year is all mine, and it doesn't always mean that's the case.
But the Greenbrier for me, whether I shot a 59 or not, if I'd have won, was definitely a way to finish the year off.
So yeah, I've had a lot of experience in starting the year well from Kapalua, but many years -- all the years before that was a terrible start. So I've really given up on the idea of get off to a good start to the year, whatever.
Hunter Mahan was telling me he was playing terrible this time last year right up until FBR, just was not happy and then won FBR. So the moral of the story seems to be that your wins can come very quickly, in a week or two. I won the Masters when I was seriously, like, and I was looking at my caddie and just going, I don't even know why I'm here. I don't even know if I can make the cut in an Australian Tour event. I'm playing terrible. At the end of the week I'd won.
So you know, good form is what you need to have ultimately throughout a career, but I don't think -- I think wins can come from the strangest places, and that's -- I think that's the exciting part of the game. You don't have to have multiple weeks of top 10, top 10s to have a win. It can come pretty quickly.

Q. Will you go back to the balcony tonight?
STUART APPLEBY: Now I reckon I'll get a good session on the range tonight and keep myself happy. That was amazing, just 20 minutes on the balcony. If you know what you're thinking about, what you're trying to do, you don't need to hit balls. I've been here long enough. What am I going to learn that's totally new, like oh, my God, I've got it? Nothing. It's not going to happen.

Q. Get any weird looks from other people in other rooms?
STUART APPLEBY: No, no, I went to go out there the other day when the rain was really pounding in the pro-am because I wanted to see or hear what was going on, and literally as soon as I opened the door, just flood came straight down and I went, righto, it's wet. It's wet out.
But no, I was going to go down to the beach. I was going to do something, but I thought that balcony looks like I've got enough room here. Just. With a sand wedge only, though.

Q. So what's the best thing Justin did today aside from inspire you?
STUART APPLEBY: Justin played well, he did. He played proper golf. He really did. He hit a good shots, made a couple of nice good putts. He just played like Justin can play. Played well, obviously a couple wins last year, and you can see why he's that sort of player. He just did a lot of good things today. Definitely a guy to beat in any tournament but certainly if he's on form. He's going to be right there.

Q. Has your life changed quite a lot after you've become a Mr. 59?
STUART APPLEBY: Not at all. Nothing has changed. Nothing really. Yes, some recognition, people sometimes call me that, "Mr. 59," but not much. I think we'll see a lot more 59s than the rarity that we've seen over the last decade or two. I think you'll see a lot more frequent. I think you'll see them yearly. I don't believe you could go more than a year or two without someone having it. Like last week was a very difficult with a par-73, but I think you will see them way more common than in the previous 20 years.

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