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JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

July 7, 2011

Mark Wilson

SILVIS, ILLINOIS

THE MODERATOR: Okay. We'll go ahead and jump in. Mark Wilson, thanks for joining us after a very successful round 1 here at the 2011 John Deere Classic. Making your ninth start here, and you're amidst quite a banner year, your best year, won two of your first three starts this year. So you're obviously riding a wave of confidence. Just a few opening comments on the year and the round today and just how you're feeling.
MARK WILSON: Yeah. It seems like a long time ago since I won, so I want that feeling back. Haven't played great say in the last month.
But yeah, worked a little bit with my teacher. I knew I wasn't far off. Just a little out of sync. It was more of a rhythm thing maybe the last couple weeks where it just didn't feel so good, and went out there and just played solid golf.
It was good playing with Steve, and obviously he's got a lot of success here in his game. It's nice to watch, just that real simple, you know, how he manages his way around the golf course. I tried to copy that, and I did a pretty good job today. So yeah, didn't birdie a par-5 and still shot 6-under which I'm thrilled with.
THE MODERATOR: Okay. With that we'll go ahead and jump in and take some questions.

Q. Being the leader early, how does that early lead play into things for you?
MARK WILSON: I think the best thing about it is just that, you know, kind of got off to a good start where tomorrow I can be thinking about staying near the lead instead of, you know, you go out and shoot maybe 1 or 2-under today and you gotta be thinking more about the cut. So I kind of go out there and do the same thing I did today and I can just kind of keep going with that momentum.

Q. Just to clarify, being the FedExCup point leader I should say, the whole season you started out on top. Is that an extra pressure thing?
MARK WILSON: No. Maybe a little bit, but you know, I'm very grateful for the situation. I was outside the 125 coming into the last tournament last year and was just looking forward to a year and the next year being -- just playing in normal tournaments, and all of a sudden I win a couple early and I'm in all the majors. So I'm just very grateful for all the blessings this year.
With the way it works, the FedExCup, I'm a math major from North Carolina, so I know how it all works. You can play really well -- just like in all the other sports. You can play well in the regular season, but you better perform in the playoffs. So you want as high season as possible. I want to keep playing well, but come Barclays and Deutsche Bank and the BMW, I want to be peaking again.

Q. Looked like you didn't really leave yourself a lot of long putts you had to make for your birdies. Talk about some of your shots.
MARK WILSON: Yeah, hit some wedges close, within 10 feet and just read the greens well. I mean the greens are perfect, and they're nice holing speed. They're not too slow, not too fast, kind of right in the middle, so you can kind of be aggressive enough.
And I was really confident on my reads and over the putts I should make and didn't really have any bonus putts like 20 feet now that I kind of look at as a bonus if it goes in. I just kind of made that range of inside 15 feet and those were my birdies.

Q. Did you feel more comfortable playing with Steve Stricker? I know you haven't had loads of success your past starts here. Was it a comfort thing today?
MARK WILSON: It was part of it. Actually I shot 64 the final round last year here, and that was really something I gained from and used that momentum, because yeah, I hadn't had very many good rounds. I just didn't understand why guys would go so low here. I didn't think it was that easy of a golf course. And I then I got on that birdie run the final round last year, and I started to feel -- I think I still only finished 30th or 40th or something.
But you know, I just remembered how easy it seemed to come, and I even bogeyed the last hole to shoot 64 last year, so I just remembered, hey, I can do it out here. That was probably more my comfort level today stemming from last year's round.

Q. Did you and Steve play a lot of golf growing up?
MARK WILSON: No. We differ in ages, yeah. I think we're about eight or nine years different in age, so I looked up to him obviously when I was in high school and college. I'd come out when he first turned pro and watched him in the Greater Milwaukee Open and stuff like that. He's a poster child for Wisconsin golf. After Andy North he's definitely the guy that everyone thinks of, and he's had a great career.
So all the Wisconsin guys, J.P., Skip and Jerry and Steve were really welcoming of me whenever I got to play with them. So it was really cool to see the pairing and get to play with Steve this week.

Q. Does this feel like a home tournament being so close to Wisconsin?
MARK WILSON: Yeah. It's only a two-hour drive down I- 88, so I got a lot of family and friends that are watching me this week and just enjoying it.

Q. Talk about your psyche when you got off to that good start earlier this year. What did that do to how you carry yourself? Did it change you at all? Did you feel more like you belonged out here? Talk about that.
MARK WILSON: I think to some degree, I feel like I belong, certainly. But yeah, I guess I think the thing that surprised me the most is how I responded after those two wins is that I -- even the next week at Pebble Beach after I won Phoenix I wanted to win again. Like I stepped up on that first tee, and in the past my other wins I'd kind of show up the next week sort of a little flat and still enjoying what happened the week before, whereas Pebble Beach, granted, I missed the cut in the end, but I was impressed at how focused I was coming to that first tee.
So I carried that ever since. And us golfers -- I say I'm grateful, but we're also greedy. When you're playing well, you want to just continue that ride, and I've had two wins, but I want to have as many as possible this year.

Q. Between J.P. and Steve's out here, do you feel like your little Cheesehead?
MARK WILSON: Little Cheesehead. Yeah. I forgot about J.P. winning and having I think a couple seconds. So yeah, good track record for the Cheeseheads, so I'm glad to start joining in on them because I haven't had the same kind of record as them.

Q. Can you measure your success and where you are right now in your career compared to maybe expectations you had placed on yourself when you first joined the TOUR?
MARK WILSON: Yeah. I didn't really expect to be a winner on the PGA TOUR. Just was really focusing on being Top 125 guy, if I could. Working with Bob Rotella, started doing that in '06 he kind of told me if you think of yourself that way, you're going to find yourself in that position. And lo and behold I found myself around 125 to 150 every year.
He's like, the day that you decide that you're a better player than that, if you think you're a Top 50 player or Top 10 player, you're going to be there. And took that mentality into next year and won. And I feel like I'm baby steps getting closer. Obviously I'm highest in the world ranking I've ever been, and I'm still creeping up there.
I feel the next step is to play well in some majors. I haven't made a cut in a major, so that's certainly a hurdle I'd like to get over and see if I can join some of those Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams.

Q. Did you move south from Wisconsin for better weather?
MARK WILSON: Slowing moving south. That's right. With this job it's great because I can leave January 1st and go to Hawaii and my neighbors hate me for it.

Q. Why the Chicago area?
MARK WILSON: My wife's from there and I'm from Wisconsin, so it's just convenient. We travel 30 weeks out of the year. And I don't do much golf at home, and if I'm going to be home, I want to be near family and friends and not in a warm-weather climate where I'm not even going to play golf in an off week. I'll play once or twice during the summer when I'm home during an off week at the most. And in the winter I just play a lot of tournaments January, February and March to kind of avoid the weather in Wisconsin, try to keep my game sharp best I can.

Q. I read the PGA TOUR Wives' 15 questions of yours.
MARK WILSON: Okay.

Q. What's the most embarrassing thing?
MARK WILSON: (Laughs). Yeah. My friends got that list they can pull it out of their back pocket when they have a chance. It's pretty funny.
I think the ironing thing. I do all the ironing in the house. I thought that was a good thing, but I've gotten a lot of heat for that.

Q. You've talked a lot about your organization habits, being a math major, things like that. Is the precision of the game, is that what draws you to it and are you always focused and maybe focused too hard ever?
MARK WILSON: That's the thing I had to overcome, being too analytical out there. And certainly Dr. Bob's helped me with that. And once you get out there, it's just a game. But I like to prepare as best I can and I think with all my numbers and all that kind of stuff I think it helps me prepare, not make any mistakes that way, but once you get out there, I always thought that I was the type of guy that's all about technique. You know, I'm going to just focus on technique, improve my swing, improve my putting, based on technique and I'll overcome.
But the day I decided it's more just about willing it to a target was the day I started playing a lot better out here and having more success.

Q. You mentioned that Dr. Bob is sort of somebody who's helped you build your game. Where you're at now, you're a little closer to Cog Hill. Could you talk about your time with Kevin Weeks and how that helped you a little bit?
MARK WILSON: Yeah. Kevin, I saw him actually the week before I won Mayakoba in '09. We had a nice session there, there was two feet of snow on the ground, but we were in Kevin Weeks' putting studio up there in the barn on the back of the range at Cog Hill, and he's got a great setup. Right when I think he's got it all he adds another camera or something for a new angle.
And he helped me out a few weeks ago, too, felt like I was just opening the blade a little bit on the back stroke. And ultimately it's up to me to figure out how to fix it because teachers can tell you what to do and how it looks good on camera. If it doesn't feel right, I'm not going to be able to perform under the gun. So I take his information and then I go and try to figure out what the best way to combat that, and for me the putting at Memorial improved just by putting my hands ahead about an inch. That's kind of helped me not open the void up as much going back. And that was the solution I came to after Kevin gave me all the information.
THE MODERATOR: Okay. Well, Mark, great playing. Keep it up.

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