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FARMERS INSURANCE OPENJanuary 26, 2011Rickie FowlerSAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: Thanks for joining us for a few minutes. First of all, congratulations on an incredible rookie year. A pair of runner-up finishes, Ryder Cup your rookie year, which yielded Rookie of the Year honors. Maybe just start off with a couple of comments reflecting on 2010, and how that's kind of shaping up your mindset as you roll into '11? RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, 2010 was obviously a great year. I think there are just a couple things we left off out. Obviously it was great to have some high finishes. Finished high here last year at Farmers and left out a win. We were close a few times and would have liked to have snuck that in there. Missed out on the Tour Championship through the FedExCup Playoffs. Other than that, like I said, it was a great year. We had a lot of fun, and got us off to a great start. Coming into 2011, I guess the main goals for this year are working on my first PGA TOUR win, making it to the Tour Championship through the FedExCup, and having a chance to play on the Presidents Cup team. Q. Murrieta's about an hour from here. Do you get a feel this is a home course and a hometown tournament? RICKIE FOWLER: A little bit. Obviously have some fans and friends and family out here this week that will definitely make it feel a little bit more at home. I've played this course a few times. Not a whole lot, just a handful of times before playing the U.S. Open here and playing last year in the Farmers as well. Torrey's one of my favorite places to play. I've been here a few times and the north is a fun course. Torrey south is one of my favorite courses. Q. Four years ago you were out here to play a tournament on the north course. (No microphone) four years later you've got the experience of playing in a final, sort of talk about how your career has changed from that point to today? RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, going from playing, like you said, I don't know if it was four, five years somewhere around there, just a few years back from playing junior golf and getting ready to go to college. It's definitely been a whirlwind. Been a pretty quick. There are some fast tracks to the PGA TOUR, and there are some guys that may take a few more years. I was lucky enough to get here a little bit quicker. It's great to get experience like playing with Mickelson in the final round, and getting the experience that I got last year. It's just going to make this year and hopefully the rest of my career a lot easier. Q. Speaking of going quickly, you probably didn't expect that you would qualify to play in a Ryder Cup before you'd even play in the Masters. You're moving along rather fast. But getting into Augusta this coming year, what are you looking forward to? What does it mean to you to now be able to go there? RICKIE FOWLER: I've had that question a few times, and people have tried to single out one thing that I might be looking forward to most. There's not really one thing I can think of that really sticks out in my mind. It's kind of the whole experience. Driving down Magnolia Lane, playing in the par-3 contest, playing practice rounds. Whether it be playing practice rounds prior to the week, during the week, first tee on Thursday, the whole week. Just looking forward to the whole experience. Obviously, I've watched a bunch of different reruns with Jack and Tiger winning. Obviously, I watched those the last few years. There's nothing really that sticks out in my mind that I'm really looking forward to. It's kind of soaking in the whole week and having a good experience. Q. You've never been? RICKIE FOWLER: No, I've never been. Q. Last year, your first year, obviously, but you've done the travel and all that for years now. But what was the hardest part of last year? Was it mentally exhausting, kind of going, going, going the whole time? RICKIE FOWLER: Well, last year we didn't expect to be playing as much as we did. Being that I played well early, it opened some doors later on in the year. So we weren't really expecting to play more than 30 events, and I think we exceeded that by a few. Definitely, it's a lot more travel than I've done. I've been used to traveling all over, but traveling that much week to week and the amount of miles we put on, that is definitely something new for me. Between the amount of travel and time management, between working out, sleeping, practicing. Last year I had to deal with a learning a lot of new courses, which this year will definitely free up my time a little bit and make it a little less stressful. So, I mean, between time management and a little bit more travel than I'm used to, I think that was the biggest adjustment. Q. How about competing as much as you did? RICKIE FOWLER: I love to compete. I love to play tournaments. Like I said, it's more the time management and the travel that I had to get used to. Playing golf and playing competitive golf, nothing new. Just had to find a way to get to the top of the leaderboard. Q. Can you talk about your decision not to play in the Hope? You got an exception there last year and obviously kind of your home course. Can you walk us through that process? RICKIE FOWLER: Well, going in, like I said, going back to how much I played last year. I started out early in the year to obviously go out and make money to play well to secure my card for 2011. With playing well early, that got me into some late events, a lot of travel, and I didn't end up ending my season until mid-December last year. I was really looking forward to getting some downtime, getting some time off. With Sony and the Hope being early in the year, it really would have made my off-season a little bit shorter than I was planning on. So the way it worked out, playing here at the Farmers for my first week was just, we thought, the best thing for my off-season and to start 2011. Q. Obviously you guys are private contractors. You can play whatever events you want and not others. But was that a difficult decision for you, and do you feel you took any undo criticism for that? RICKIE FOWLER: No, I don't think it was too tough. I don't think that I should really get criticized too much for it. I need downtime. I need a bit of time to rest. Can't play every week. But, obviously, I would have liked to have played at the Hope being close to home. But like I said, I needed to get some sleeping time in, some rest time, and get ready for this year. Q. Could you tell us a little about that dirt bike commercial you cut for Puma? Do you still ride? RICKIE FOWLER: Well, the commercial shoot was pretty fun. I would have liked to have shot the whole commercial on my own. You can think it's me on the bike shooting the whole commercial. You can keep that rumor going, however you want to do it. Q. Stunt man, huh? RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah. No, they wouldn't let me do it, or else I would have been out there doing the whole commercial. It was fun to shoot. Definitely a cool little commercial. It's obviously different to golf. I don't think there are too many commercials like it. I'm looking forward to seeing it run a bit. I don't know what the plan is to release it on TV or not, but it turned out good. It was a lot of fun, like I said, to kind of bring that element to golf and, like I said, hopefully it gets released out and the golf world gets to see it. Q. Are you still riding? RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, yeah. I still ride a bit, just for fun. Nothing crazy like I used to do. Just go out, mess around and have a little fun and let loose. Q. Who is the guy who was your stuntman stand-in? Was it somebody that you knew from motocross or whatever? RICKIE FOWLER: No, someone that Puma found. A guy back in Florida, a freestyle rider. He actually ended up being a friend of a friend from a while back, but I didn't know him before the shoot. Q. Did you and your parents, your dad, whatever, come down and watch this as fans when you were younger? If so, who did you follow around and what was that experience like? RICKIE FOWLER: I came down here I think one time. I was actually -- with the tournaments in California, I really only made it to each of them probably once or twice. I wasn't a very big, I don't know, guy that would just go to tournaments and want to watch. I like to obviously just like to stay at home and play golf on my own. But, yeah, I did make it down here to watch guys like Tiger and Phil. Q. Do you know what year that was or who won or what day? RICKIE FOWLER: No, I don't remember what year. But I do remember making it down here. Obviously, over for the Match Play when it used to be at La Costa. But I didn't make it down here on a yearly basis or anything like that. Q. We've been talking a lot about the rules and stuff that's gone on recently. Phil was in here a little bit ago, and he said when he was at ASU the coach made him take kind of a rules course. Did you have to do anything like that in school? RICKIE FOWLER: I know we took a history course on OSU golf (laughing). No, we had to pass a little -- just for the golf team. It wasn't part of actual school -- we had to pass OSU golf history, a little test before we could go out and play. I don't think it was anything too stressful. Just to learn about the history. As for rules, I learned most of the rules and stuff through junior golf and amateur golf. I don't remember any tests, exactly. But I know with having the rules officials around through junior golf and amateur golf, everything was taught pretty well. Between that and my coach that I've had, I basically know, I would say, all the situations. But still going to call a rules official over just in case. Q. Could you do all those stunts that were in the commercial at one point in your life? What is the craziest thing you have done on a bike? RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, the commercial would have been fairly easy to do. There wasn't much going on there. Just a little jump and a little nose wheelie. Nothing too crazy. I mean, big jumps and stuff like that, I didn't get into doing a whole lot of tricks. I was more riding, racing. I like being in the air, but I never got too big into freestyle. Q. Some of the best golfers in the world have had sophomore slumps or things like that. Do you feel like you're far enough along that you can avoid that? Do you worry that you've got to match what you did last year and go even higher this year? RICKIE FOWLER: I'm confident with my game, and I felt good with what we did last year. I really didn't look at last year as my first year out. It was my rookie season, but I had played a few times before that. I played two U.S. Opens at an amateur, and felt like that was more of where I was starting. Last year it was just nice to get a full year out here and get going. I'm just looking to have another good time this year, and hopefully get my first PGA TOUR win. Q. Kind of a freestyle question. I know you're cool with McGrath and Robbie Madison and stuff. How many of those guys do you know and what is that relationship like, golf-wise, freestyle-wise? RICKIE FOWLER: Before turning pro, I probably knew more guys that were professional motocross riders than I do professional golfers. Now it's a little different. I know more guys out here. But I have a great relationship with a lot of guys I know that ride. They love to play golf. I get to go out with them and play every once in a while when we both have free time. Last week I went to P2R, which is a little indoor go-kart racing. Me and Ronnie Renner went over there. He snuck me out by a couple tenths of a second, but just stuff like that. We like to have fun together. And, like I said, go tee it up when we have a chance. Q. Obviously anybody on the tour, there is a certain amount of fame. You seem to go beyond that a little bit with the way you're promoted, the way you play, your look. How have you dealt with that stuff that goes above and beyond just being a TOUR player and being a little bit of a celebrity? RICKIE FOWLER: I don't really look at myself like that. I get noticed in public a little bit more now which is kind of cool. I like people coming up and asking for autographs and wanting pictures and stuff like that. But I don't look at myself any differently. I'm not trying to act any differently. It's cool to be looked at like that as a professional athlete or possibly small celebrity. It's cool to get noticed. Obviously, I want to be a good role model for my fans and young kids in the game of golf, and trying to get possibly more people interested in the game of golf. Q. What is a part of your game that you feel has really held up well in your first couple years as a pro, and maybe the part of your game you'd like to see improve over the next three to four years to take you to another level? RICKIE FOWLER: Ball striking and driving has been probably my best area of my game. Short game and putting is definitely where I could get better and tighten up my game. Last year I had a little bit of a rough start with the putter. Came around towards the end of the year, made some good putts at Ryder Cup. I felt like my short game definitely could have been a lot better, bunker play, especially. Q. As a follow-up, you described how you really never relied on video, kind of a self-taught player, more or less. As last year went along, did you feel like you got more into the analysis of your game or do you like to keep your mind uncluttered and just play by feel? RICKIE FOWLER: I still love to play by feel. Obviously if I feel something's off or I'm not hitting it correctly, whether it be hitting a solid golf shot or not starting the ball online, that is something I'll go to the range and practice a bit. Or if I'm not hitting my putts where I want to, I'll go to the putting green and work on that. But everything's still by feel, staying away from getting too mechanical and just playing the game. Q. They don't give a trophy for your come back in the match in the Ryder Cup, the singles match. But do you feel like in a way that was almost like a tournament victory, and you gained the kind of confidence from that that you could have from a win out here? RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, although, I mean, to have a match, I mean it gave us life over there. To be in the situation and to hit the shots and make the putts that I did, it definitely gave me confidence. The way I swung it down the stretch there, and like I said the, putts that I did make, 15, it was a short putt, but it wasn't easy. Then 17 and 18 were obviously putts that can go in, but obviously don't always do. So to make those especially under the circumstances and pressure with everyone watching, you can only walk away with confidence. End of FastScripts |
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