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WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPENFebruary 1, 2012Mark WilsonSCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome our defending champion into the interview room, Mark Wilson. Mark, it's been a heck of a year for you since this tournament last year. You won a couple weeks ago at the Humana Challenge. Talk about the year you've had and the season's start this year. MARK WILSON: Yeah, I was just thinking about it last night, actually, with winning at Disney 2010, outside the Top 125, and my goal was to play well enough to get in THE PLAYERS Championship, I was still exempt on Tour because of my win at Mayakoba but it was a really important week for me. I was trying some new things in my short game, and they all came together, finished sixth, and that was really the starting point to my success early last year. Then wasn't sure how I was going to do this year, if I was going to copy what I did or not, and obviously the win at‑‑ missing the cut at Sony, I was kind of wondering, I guess the magic is gone, but the very next week at Humana, I went in there with low expectations and just made a ton of birdies the first two days and just got out in front and just stayed there. So it's been good. And then last week was the first time I've ever had a week off after a win, so I was able to soak it up and enjoy answering all the emails I got from friends and family and enjoy time with the family and just sort of ease into this week. So it was a welcome thing to do there, to have a week off. Q. What have you learned about defending titles now that you've had a few chances to do it? MARK WILSON: The main thing, I guess, is that any tournament that I've won I've gone into with very low expectations, not trying to win the tournament, just go out there and play the best I could and see what I shoot. When you tend to go back to a place where you've won, you start comparing yourself to the previous year, like oh, at this point last year I was 6‑under par at this point, now I'm 6‑over; what's the difference? I guess the main thing is try to keep the expectations out of it and just go out there and just play, play golf and add it up and see how well I've done. Q. So with all your success over these last two years, it's obviously no fluke that you're winning. How do you think about yourself now since playing the game at this level is so much about self‑confidence? MARK WILSON: I guess I'm more confident in the ability for my game to get it done on PGA TOUR golf courses. I guess it's been drilled into some of us more average length hitters that you've got to hit it further, and you're at such a disadvantage. But the event I referenced back there, 2010, just before that, I worked with Greg Rose there at Titleist Performance Institute, and he gave me some fun short game ideas, gave me a different way of reading the greens, and we were just focusing on short game, trying to get better from 120 yards and in. If you do that well, I really don't think it matters how far you hit the golf ball or how close you hit the golf ball with your 5‑iron. Those things help, but I feel like I'm more comfortable with my game and that it's good enough to win out here. Some of the longer courses that play wet, I'm certainly at a disadvantage, but I can overcome that with some good short game. Q. This course has historically favored long hitters, and yet you won here, so does that sort of prove your point there? Did you prove that to yourself? MARK WILSON: I think so. I don't really think of this as a bomber's course too much. It was cold last year so it played a little longer than normal. I've always played well here in the past. I was tied for the lead after two rounds in 2010, as well, so I've just had a good feeling here, and it's all about rolling putts in, and I've got a really good feel on the greens here. Q. You kind of touched on this a little bit at Humana, but is there anything you would do differently this year than you did last year? MARK WILSON: You know, I guess the only thing that I'll do maybe differently is‑‑ and I've already looked at my schedule, and I've got a couple different breaks later in the year because I feel like I never got more than a week break during the season, and so I never had a chance to just go home and put the clubs away for two weeks, which I do in November and December, which is I think part of the reason I've played so well, because I'm free of any negative thoughts I might have had during the season. So that's really the only thing I've looked at, the scheduling, and just‑‑ and also, I guess I just think, too, just approaching each event, too, I don't feel like I have to go out and play an 18‑hole practice round and all this stuff. It's sort of what I feel like doing. I know the golf courses well and I ease into the week, and I really want to peak on the weekend sometime. So I feel much more comfortable when my game is not maybe firing on all cylinders say on Wednesday and go from there. Q. Has there been any adjustment for you with the new clubs at all? MARK WILSON: Yeah, there was, yeah. A couple things happened in Hawai'i. I got some fliers that I don't normally get there. We looked at the irons, and just made sure everything, the loft and lies were in the right‑‑ just right for me. We made a couple tweaks there at the Humana before we started. One thing we did specifically was my 4‑ and 5‑iron, I was only hitting the 4‑iron about maybe five yards further than my 5‑iron, and that seemed like a waste, so we bumped that a degree a little stronger, so now I've got a good gap there. Obviously they work pretty good, and I feel very comfortable with them. They're a more forgiving club than the one I was using before. They work better in the wind; the dispersion of shots in terms of distance is better into the wind. You don't hit one‑‑ say, a 7‑iron I hit 160 normally. I don't hit too many that only go say 130 into a strong wind or downwind they go super far. There's a better dispersion there, so they're definitely a better club. I wanted to get them in the bag. At the same time it's kind of a leap of faith for me. I had such a great year with the i10s, I don't really want to switch, but I'm glad I did because they definitely feel better, and thankfully I've got a win already to justify the switch. Q. That's an i20, the new one? MARK WILSON: Yeah, yeah. Q. Did you question it at all after you missed the cut at the Sony? Did you think it was a bad decision at all? MARK WILSON: Yeah, I was‑‑ you know, I just was like‑‑ I didn't want to switch back, but I wanted to go‑‑ I knew the new clubs‑‑ they're better, it's just when you throw some new clubs in or maybe a new swing thought, whatever it is, you've got to maybe see some new things, and you can't just go, oh, you can't blame the equipment or the swing thought, you just kind of push forward, and I'm glad I pushed forward because they're definitely better, and I'm a better player for them. Q. Are we still pretty early in the Mark Wilson era as most experts call this time? MARK WILSON: In the late 30s? Q. Are we midway along in the Mark Wilson era, or the MWE as we like to say (laughter)? MARK WILSON: I have no idea. I just keep plugging along and see what I can do. I have no idea. I feel good about things. I feel good about‑‑ I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel every week like I was when I was 30 years old. There was always a new swing thought, a new putting thought, a new chipping thought. Let's go try that this week and see how it works. I don't do that anymore, I just do the same things over and over again. My idol growing up were guys like Ben Hogan, but now my idol I think is Bruce Lietzke. I don't want to misquote him, but I thought I remember him saying, he doesn't want to get better, he wants to stay the same, and what I think he means by that is if he hits a 7‑iron 160, he doesn't want to get stronger and all of a sudden start hitting it 165 because then he's going to be 15 feet past the hole. I didn't understand what he meant when he said that when I was a teenager growing up, but now I get it now that I'm in my 30s. Just keep doing what I'm doing, and also not get down maybe by a failure. When I missed the cut at the Sony, I was disappointed at first, but I said, I played pretty well. I just got a couple fliers that were unusual for me, led to a couple bogeys, and that's why I wasn't there on the weekend, and that was all the difference. Let's just try to remember that we're doing a lot of things right, go look at these irons a little bit, and then go to Humana and see what we've got, and things turned out okay. Q. How much fun is it to raise your sights a little bit because of your success and look at majors and other things where you haven't had as many chances as a lot of guys and you have more opportunities now at tournaments you probably haven't played a lot over the years? MARK WILSON: I think for me the majors this year should be a little bit different. I mean, the Masters already, last year we had everybody in my family coming, and now I think my dad is the only one coming this year, and so that just makes it easier in that sense, too. And I've realized that, once again, it's just golf, and it's hyped because yeah, those are the ones that everyone remembers and maybe non‑golf fans are watching the Masters and the U.S. Open. But at the same time I just have to treat them like another golf tournament, and I feel like I've over‑prepared for them in the past, like get there on Sunday night, make sure I get 36 to 54 holes of practice in, and lo and behold‑‑ get to learn the golf course. That's one of the mistakes I made when I was a rookie. I felt like I needed to get here and spend Monday and Tuesday learning the golf courses when rest might have been better, just take it easy and go‑‑ learn the course once and then go with it. Q. Did you just say you have extra Masters tickets? That was what I heard. MARK WILSON: No, they're going to be filled somehow. Don't get that wrong. It's just that we're going outside the immediate family this year, let's put it that way. Q. You may have touched on this, but just talk about the atmosphere, playing on this course and the experience here. Just try and describe what the atmosphere is like, how that sets it apart from some of the other tournaments you play in. MARK WILSON: Well, I think the best quote I heard is that it's really a party where a golf tournament broke out. 11th tee box, my first time I played here was 2008, and that's not by choice, that's because it's such a popular tournament amongst the players. I've been on Tour since 2003 but I was always low in the pecking order so I couldn't get in, so that was the first year I got in. And I was on that 11th tee box, and I was getting ready to hit my tee shot, and I could not believe how loud it was around me.  And I looked back and no one was watching me, so I'm like, I guess I'm supposed to hit. That made it almost easier. It's sort of that atmosphere like when someone is shooting a free throw it's almost hard to make it if it's dead silent, and that feels weird when you're at the Phoenix Open; you're back on like the 5th and 6th holes that are away from No.16 and it's quiet, it doesn't feel right. It almost feels right when you're at the Phoenix Open to have people cheering and hollering and maybe giving you a hard time. Q. What do the fans at 16 get on you about? MARK WILSON: Well, they don't really know me very much. Maybe they're starting to know me. They've been very polite and very nice to me. You know, they've got to dig deeper I will say. The media guide, they get stuff out of the media guide. I've heard, Halloween was a great day, because that's when I was born. It's like, you guys got to do better than that. I'm sure maybe being defending champion the guys have done a little more research and they'll find something a little more interesting from my past. We'll see. Q. Have you given out any gifts? MARK WILSON: A couple cheeseheads, yeah, last year. After wearing the cheesehead I threw those up in the stands, and I think sadly a Steelers fan grabbed one of them. I'm like, what do you need that for? But one of them got in the right hands, a girl with an Aaron Rodgers jersey on. Q. Are you okay with the perfect weather after your success last year in the cold? MARK WILSON: I'm very excited about that, knowing what my tee time is going to be and not have to keep hearing the rules officials say, add 30 more minutes because of frost, add an hour, add an hour and a half. It'll be a welcome change. JOE CHEMYCZ: Mark, thank you. Play well this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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