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RBC CANADIAN OPEN

July 20, 2011

Charl Schwartzel

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

THE MODERATOR: Like to welcome Charl Schwartzel to the RBC Canadian Open. Charl, this is your first time playing in Canada and your first RBC Canadian Open. Just your thoughts on playing the course. You said today was the first time you'd seen it, and we'll take questions from there.
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, it's obviously my first tournament in Canada. I'm very excited about it. You know, the golf course is a course that is pretty much right in front of you. It's a course that sort of looks like it suited my eye. Today was the first time I've seen it.
But it's a tough golf course. It's been a long time since I've had that many yardages of 200 and over into a lot of these holes, and the ball is going short, so I thought that it played really long today.

Q. When you're looking at a set-up like this, this is a national open, Mike Weir just mentioned when he was in here that the set-up is difficult. Do you believe that's the way it should be? National opens should be set-up difficult for you guys?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Well, I think a national open has some sort of prestige to it. So, you know, you want to separate it from normal events. Yeah, this is tough. Not even the U.S. Open at Congressional was nearly as much rough as this. No, this is the toughest I've had all year rough-wise.

Q. I was just wondering, can you talk a little bit about the difficulty it presents an individual to play the British Open, and you have to travel across continent and across country to come, set-up, and be ready to play again in less than a week? How taxing or how difficult is that?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: It gets difficult when you're crossing eight time zones. But I find it a little bit easier going east to west. Whenever we're coming this way, I don't find it too much to adapt to. The biggest thing was the bad weather we had at Royal St. Georges was to find a golf swing I can hit the ball high again coming out here. So I think that was part of the biggest adjustment for me is to find my golf swing again.

Q. Can you talk about how things have changed obviously for you since Augusta and your win at the Masters?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Well, I mean, obviously when you win a tournament with that sort of a prestige, things in your life change a little bit. A few more tournaments get added to the schedule that weren't quite there, but nothing that I'm complaining about.
Everything that happened to me is all a positive. I'm just trying to manage my time a little bit better and give my golf the attention it needs. You can really easily fall into a trap of giving too much attention to other things when it's your golf that actually suffers.

Q. Your win at Augusta came fifty years after Gary Player became the first Non-American to win. Was it a huge deal back home?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, I think it was. It obviously added to the whole victory that it was Gary's 50th anniversary. It made my win a little more special and made the win that he had 50 years ago, people will remember it a little bit more now. If say an American were to win, no one would be talking about Gary's 50th. But since a South African won it on the 50th it's spoken about a little bit more.

Q. You haven't golfed here before, but you've been to British Columbia before, haven't you?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, I've been here twice in 2008 and 2009. We come for waterskiing, and that sounds funny. People say why are you going to Canada? We're going waterskiing in Canada. What, waterskiing? So we love coming here.

Q. Is it special that you both played majors so close together?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, definitely. We've both got such a good friendship. You know, it's nice. It's nice to sit down sometimes and think about what we've done.

Q. I wondered if you've heard, but Tiger Woods and Steve Williams have decided to split their player-caddie relationship? What is your reaction? Secondly, for the fan at home on the couch, that may seem like a big deal, but from your perspective, is that player-caddie relationship split, specifically that one, a big deal?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: No, this is the first time I've heard about it. I think that they've had such a good run. There is a saying that a good thing will always come to an end some time. So I suppose they just needed a change.
He hasn't been playing much, and he hasn't been playing well. So maybe what he needs is a new environment.

Q. Charl, you're playing with Ernie tomorrow. Two questions, is that still special for you? He's meant a lot to your career, I understand. Does that give a little something extra to the round tomorrow?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: It's always nice to play with Ernie. I've always said when I play with him, I seem to play a little bit better. I feed a lot off of the way he swings the club. His rhythm rubs off on me a little bit. I'm looking forward to playing with him.

Q. Can you talk about the impact he's had on your career and other South African players?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: He's helped me a lot as a professional. He's always invited us to play with him in practice rounds and share a bit of his knowledge. He's helped me out the few times I've come to America. I sometimes stay with him he's not the worst guy to be around to learn things from. He's done a lot for me as a professional.

Q. You mentioned this is a long golf course and thick rough. Do you have any idea what you think the winning number might be this week?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: You know, it's difficult to say. I've played it once, and I played with Paul. If Paul's not playing in the tournament, I can do pretty well. It's difficult to say. I don't play it properly enough to actually analyze to see what sort of score will win. But I don't think it's going to be very much under par. Maybe around 6- or 7-under, something like that.

Q. There was some talk earlier in the year that the President's Cup may coincide with the same day of the South African Open. Obviously that's been waylaid. But can you talk a little bit about the sense of national pride or whatever you have when playing your own national open, and sort of what you see in comparison when you come to Canada and you see our national open?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Yeah, well, you know, it's fortunate for us they've changed the dates around, so we've got a chance to play our national open. I think for any player whose national open it is, I'm sure for Mike Weir that is playing here, and Stephen Ames, and a bunch of Canadians, you know, it really would be something nice to add to your C.V. To win a tournament, your own, in front of your own people, makes it a little bit more special for that specific person.

Q. Welcome to our city. I was chatting with Anthony Kim, and he said this course to him is one of the toughest that he's played in his life. What makes it so intimidating? I know there is the rough and the small greens. But what were your impressions out there? I know you just talked about the score, but what makes this course, you know, have its teeth?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Well, it's so long that it forces you to hit drivers. Most of the time, when the courses are this long and tough, you would back off to your 3-wood and play like that. But it's almost too long to do that.
Most of the golf courses where the rough is thick, if you miss it by 5 meters where the people walk, you'll be fine. But if you walk it by 5 meters, yeah, sure, you'll be better off, but you're in the trees.
The trees are very close to the fairways, so there is, you know, you need precision. If you're slightly off, you're chopping it out, and you've got to go from there.
I've found the greens are very small. So even if you do hit the fairway, you're standing with a 5 or 4-iron, and if they get a little bit firmer, you can't hold them. It's really difficult. You know, it's just playing a difficult golf course that's not tricked up. It's just difficult.

Q. Hopefully you're enjoying our summer weather so far.
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: Is this summer?

Q. Yeah, you wouldn't know it. But I don't want to jinx it, but judging from last week at the British Open, how much do you have to alter your game to play in those kind of conditions and given the course this is, how narrow it is, and how thick the rough is?
CHARL SCHWARTZEL: The British Open you've got that one swing that you work on and you use it only there and you throw it out the window, because it doesn't work anywhere else. The British Open you play such different golf. You want to get the ball up. You want to get it flying far there. You want to get it down and rolling.
It sometimes can take a while, especially in the conditions we played and that sort of wind and the weather, to get a little bit of the niggles out of your swing that you might have picked up in those sort of conditions. You know, I mean, you've got to get back to what you do for the other 51 weeks of the year.

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