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SONY OPEN IN HAWAIIJanuary 13, 2012David HearnHONOLULU, HAWAII CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome David Hearn here to the media center at the Sony Open Hawai'i. David, back‑to‑back 66s, your first two days. Second time playing this event, I believe. Just talk about what feels good here as you start your 2012 PGA TOUR season. DAVID HEARN: Yeah, obviously I finished off last year real strong in the Fall Series, and I had quite a bit of time off leading into this event, and I did take quite a bit of time off over December. I was just really practicing when I got back down to Florida about a week ago or a week and a bit. I really wanted to hit the ground running, just kind of finish off where I was last year. Everything feels pretty good for the most part. My short game has been really good, my putter has been really solid. Off the tee I've been putting it in play for the most part. There's still a little bit of rough stuff with a few shots, but I'm certainly not going to complain at all. This is the most ideal start I could have for taking that much time off. CHRIS REIMER: I think you had two top 10s in the Fall Series. Did something click or did you figure something out or were you almost unhappy to see the season end? DAVID HEARN: I kind of was. I wish there were more tournaments to play after that. No, I feel like I played pretty steady most of the year last year, and I just wasn't quite getting the results, getting those top 10s and those finishes. You know, I don't know what it was that clicked, but something obviously did, and I've always been a guy that hits a lot of fairways and greens and started to make some of the putts. You know, I kind of got on a little bit of a roll, so it was fun. Starting off this year I'm just going to try to do a lot of the same things I was doing last year where I finished off and hopefully keep it going. Q. Were you just jealous seeing Graham at the top of the leaderboard yesterday? DAVID HEARN: I got a few texts from some guys saying you're not the top Canadian, I need to work harder. It's great to see Graham back. He had a tough year last year with his injury. He played in the opposite wave so when I got to the golf course yesterday he was finishing up his round, and it was great to see. Definitely for him that's got to feel great after taking a year off to come back and post a round like that. Canadians like the Australians and all the other countries around the world, we kind of pull for each other, so it was good to see him do well yesterday. Q. What was it like when you came off the course to look at the leaderboard? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I think that's something we can get used to. It's like Canadian junior days again. That feels great. We don't have a lot of Canadians out here, so I think I think at the Frys.com last year we had three or four Canadians in the top 10, which has never been done before, either, so we've had some neat things going on with our Canadian players recently. Q. I think everybody when they think Canadian golf they think Mike Weir, but there is a strong group of younger players out there from Canada, isn't there? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's been a lot of good young players out of Canada for a while now. I think Mike has had such an outstanding career that there's not a lot of other guys that have got quite the recognition. And albeit probably not as deserved as Mike. I think he's a nine‑time champion, a Masters winner. That's a career that any of us would love to have by the time we're done. But there are a lot of good young players. I think we have a record number of guys on the Nationwide, and I think there's four or five of us on the PGA this year. We're really hopeful some good things are going to happen. Canadians love golf. Q. How do you grow up by Wayne Gretzky's house and not play hockey? DAVID HEARN: I did, but if you see, I didn't really fill out well enough. That decision was kind of made for me at a young age that I was going to be a golfer, not a hockey player. But no, I played hockey in the winter and then I would play golf in the summer. But I always knew I'd be a golfer. I made the right choice. I didn't really have a choice. Q. Obviously he's played golf before in some of these celebrity events. Have you played with him? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I was fortunate, he had a Nationwide event for three years in Canada. He ran it in Collingwood, and the first year that he hosted it, I was his partner for the tournament. You know, it was really neat to play with a guy like that. He's obviously the greatest at his sport of all time, so it's pretty much an honor and privilege to play with him at an event like that. Great guy, though. I had always heard great things about Wayne, and he's certainly down to earth for as good a hockey player as he was, and a lot of fun to be around. Q. Did you ever know him growing up at all? DAVID HEARN: No, not at all. I was born in '79, and I think he was in the NHL in '79 or '80. He was winning Cups when I was in diapers. Q. When you grew up and when you were a kid, was it tough to be a golfer then in that hometown? DAVID HEARN: Oddly enough, no, we had a lot of good young juniors come out of our club in Branford. We still do. We have two or three good young female players that are‑‑ one plays at Alabama, one plays at Texas. They're top players in the country. There must be something in the water. I don't know what it is. Q. Was it weird to have him play on kind of yourturf? You're the one that's the expert and he's the one that's probably not as good. DAVID HEARN: Yeah, it's funny, every time I play golf with hockey players they kind of have that comment. They get nervous, like you played in the Stanley Cup. But I think golf does this to anybody. If you're out of your element you're not going to be as confident and comfortable as you can be. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable and not confident if I was on skates in the NHL, and I'd be hurt. Q. Shifting back to what you were saying earlier about your year and the two top 10s in the Fall Series, I feel like I remember Elk giving you some advice or did you play with him and he said‑‑ DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I always enjoyed playing with some of the veteran players out here, and I've always played in practice rounds with guys like that when I could. I played with him at the Justin Timberlake tournament in Vegas, and before‑‑ I think I played with him on the Saturday round, and we had lunch after, and before the Sunday round he just had a lot of good things to say to me, and basically just reaffirmed that what I'm doing is the right thing and told me to just trust it and go do it. Sometimes just little words of encouragement from guys like that really go a long way. Q. You had mentioned that something clicked at the end of last year. Was there something specific that you can pinpoint? DAVID HEARN: I wish there was something specific because then I would just keep doing it forever. You know, honestly, the year before on the Nationwide I had a really solid year. I had a lot of good tournaments and came close to winning a couple of times. I felt like I was playing that same way most of the year early in the year last year, but as I say, I just wasn't getting the results. I don't know if it was just getting comfortable and then just continuing to be relaxed aggressively and confident out there, if that made a difference. But I can't pinpoint it to you exactly one thing, because I felt to be honest like I was playing pretty close to the way I did in the fall most of the year, I just started to make a few birdies when I needed to or that one or two up‑and‑downs when you needed them, and that sometimes to me is the difference between a good day and a bad day. Q. Can you talk a little bit about hitting a lot of greens? Does this course fit your game? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I feel like it does. There's a lot of doglegs out there and I've always been pretty good off the tee. Any golf course that you have to put the ball in play I tend to do well at. Out here today I was noticing a lot of the holes, you don't have much of a window to not go in the rough or go through the fairway. So there's certainly quite a few holes where you really have to shape the ball and try to hug some corners to try to keep it in the fairway. With it as firm as it is out there, I think it's just going to continue to play difficult off the tee. Q. I think you eagled the 9th hole. Everybody seems to be eagle or birdie. DAVID HEARN: Yeah. Q. Just how easy is it right now? DAVID HEARN: Well, I think it's just because the fairways are so firm this year. It's downwind, and it's just‑‑ if you hit it in the fairway the ball is just going to roll forever. I think I had 162 to the pin and we didn't have nearly as much wind as we do now. I can only imagine some of the longer hitters like the Gary Woodlands and the Keegan Bradleys out here might be hitting sand wedges in if they caught one off that tee. It's just a product of a hole being firm and downwind. Like I say, some of the other par‑4s coming back in, you can have 4, 5‑irons into the greens. It just depends. Q. What did you hit into No.1? DAVID HEARN: I hit a 4‑iron, and that's a good example, and that was with no wind. So there's a hole, like this afternoon, that if it stays into the wind the guys are going to be hitting 4‑ and 3‑irons in, and that's a really tough hole. It evens out. You've got a par‑4, you're hitting that long iron in, then a par‑5 downwind. It all kind of evens out. Q. The Aussies and the Swedes and now the Koreans coming, is Canadian golf kind of taking a backseat? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I think we've got lots of good players out of Canada. I think that we're all real hungry and we're all trying hard to break through and kind of make our mark in golf from Canada. You know, as I say, Weir really gave us a great example how to do it. I think we've had just one win outside of Mike the last three years from me and Leggett. So I think a lot of guys are kind of hungry and want to see someone else get a win from Canada, and hopefully it's one of us this year. Excuse me, Stephen Ames, which he's sort of a transplanted Canadian. Canadians will take it as a full win. Q. Any key shots today, any key holes today? DAVID HEARN: Yeah, I started out a little bit rough, 2 and 3, made bogeys on those holes. Hit a real nice approach shot into No.5 and made a birdie there, so that kind of kick‑started me back on the right foot. And then I made a nice longer putt on No.6 for birdie. You know, that really kind of got my round back in the right direction, so I think that's probably where it kind of‑‑ I kind of righted the ship. And then got comfortable on the downwind holes and made some birdies and then the back nine was playing pretty tricky with all the doglegs. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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