|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
JOHN DEERE CLASSICJuly 13, 2012Jeff MaggertSILVIS, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Jeff Maggert, thanks for joining us after a spectacular 9‑under, 62. I believe it ties your career‑low round here at the John Deere Classic. If I looked at it correctly, the last time you played here you finished in the top 5, third I believe, so obviously a place with fond memories. Just some comments on the round today and how you're feeling heading into the weekend. JEFF MAGGERT: Just feeling good about my game. I played a little better in the last month, other than a little hiccup at Washington D.C. I wasn't actually going to play here actually. I was looking to take a couple weeks off for the long stretch at the end of the year. But been playing better, and decided last Friday to come here and play. Obviously a good decision so far. But the ball‑striking was just really fantastic the past two days. Very similar to yesterday. Just the putting was the difference. Hit the ball very well yesterday. Probably could have shot 5‑, 6‑, 7‑under pretty easily yesterday, but that's just the way it goes. I just saw the putts better today. I was reading the putts better. Just had a good feel for the greens. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. What changed your mind at the last minute? JEFF MAGGERT: Just a lot of factors. I like this golf course. I've played well here in the past. I think it's one of our better TPC properties. Just playing better with a little bit of confidence. Was playing pretty well last week and just had a bad Saturday round. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Played well on Sunday, so it was kind of a good steppingstone into this week. I thought I could have played a lot better last week. Anyway, looking forward to this week and this weekend. Like I said, this course suits my eye well. I feel like I can hit a lot of balls close to the hole and make a few putts. Q. (Question regarding the British Open.) JEFF MAGGERT: Not at all. Probably will make the decision more difficult. I'm not really planning on going. Obviously if I were to win here or something I might have to reconsider that. But I really need a week off in my game. This will be four in a row. If I were to play the British Open it really kind of extends my schedule a little bit too much in trying to get ready for the playoffs. So it's a tough stretch because I've played a lot this year. I had surgery last year on my shoulder, so I missed half the year. I just feel like my golf game is in a good spot right now. I don't want to overdo it. At 48 years old, traveling all over the world gets a little old. I've played a lot of British Opens. Played well at St. Annes back in the '90s. So I would consider going, yes, but it would be kind of a long shot at this point. Q. So you decided last Friday in the middle of your second round? JEFF MAGGERT: I had an afternoon tee time on Friday and committed Friday morning. Talked a little bit about with my wife. To be honest with you, I was still undecided. With our Friday commitment deadline I had to go ahead and commit. Probably wasn't 100% sure until Sunday afternoon. Q. (No microphone.) JEFF MAGGERT: You have to pace yourself. I was playing better and I've always liked this golf course, but it was‑‑ I'm going to play the Canadian Open in a couple weeks. It was just these two weeks, this week and the British Open, were kind of the break in my summer schedule that I was going to kind of take off. But anyway, we'll take one week off next week and work around it. If you play well and win a tournament, you're not complaining about playing too many. At 48 years old, you know, this is kind of the tail end of my career on the regular TOUR. I would like to play out here a few more years. I feel like I can be competitive maybe for maybe three or four more years out here. Like to play this tour maybe when I'm 50, 51, 52, and then kind of transition in to the senior tour. Obviously just playing well, winning a tournament would be big at my point. Give me a two‑year exemption and don't have to do that darn Q‑School anymore. (Laughter.) Q. So this could really set you off to go right into the championship. JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah. Like I say, being injured a little bit the last three or four years kind of, you know, I've still got some competitive juices. I feel like I got some gas in the tank to play well out here for a few more years. Just going to play it by ear and see what happens. Q. Talk about the surgery. JEFF MAGGERT: I had a surgery on my right shoulder. Had a bone spur that had been there for, gosh, almost two years I battled it. I knew it was there and just was not wanting to do the surgery because of the downside risk of it. Finally did it last summer, and it's been night and day. My shoulder has been fantastic. I broke a rib early in the 2007 season. That was kind of really where I started to struggle with my game. That was a tough injury. I tried playing through it, but it really, more than anything it set my golf swing back. Just struggled with my golf swing for two or three years after that. Then the shoulder thing. So I played a lot of years without any injuries out here and I took it for granted, so I really appreciate guys that are hurt and trying to play through it. It's not an easy thing to do. Q. Did you ever wonder if you would be back in a position like this when you start undergoing surgery like that? Does that make you appreciate where you are today? JEFF MAGGERT: From my standpoint, it was more just to have more stamina on the golf course. I could do rehab with my injured shoulder and I could play a week or two and it would feel pretty good. If I tried to extend that or played four or five tournaments over a six or seven week span, the fatigue just kind of wore me out. I fought that for about 18 months. Just wasn't going to get any better, so I had to try to make a change and make it better. It was a bone spur. They call it the AC joint, which is right on top of the rotator cuff. I knew the day, the moment I injured it. I knew that I did something to it. I played a couple weeks and it was really bothering me. I went to the doctor and they took an x‑ray and they said, Yeah, you have a bone spur right on the top there. They said, We can get rid of it or we can do rehab. I tried to do rehab for a while, but... It wasn't an injury where I just couldn't swing a golf club. It was fatigue. It would get sore, tired, just not a lot stamina to play an extended period of time. Q. Does the British Open not suit your game? JEFF MAGGERT: I've had some pretty good British Opens. You know, if I would have been exempt a few months ago, knowing I would have been probably really looking forward to St. Annes just because I don't think it's a big‑hitter's golf course. They're always lengthening those courses, but from what I remember from the past, it was a golf course that I could play pretty well on. Q. And at 48, there's not a sense of urgency, let's get a major here? JEFF MAGGERT: No, not really. I saw Kenny Perry last week at the Greenbrier. I was thinking of his career, about how well he played in his late 40s. I kind of cracked a joke with him. I said, I'm just trying to play like Kenny Perry did when he was in his late 40s. He laughed and he said Yeah, baby. Go after it. You got it in you. We'll see. Q. (No microphone.) JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, and you probably know. He probably won six or seven times between 45 and 50. THE MODERATOR: Yeah. JEFF MAGGERT: Maybe between 47 and 50 he won five or six times or more. Q. Did you hurt the shoulder golfing? JEFF MAGGERT: I was moving furniture. It's always doing crazy stuff. I was carrying some furniture on my shoulder. Just kind of putting the weight on the top there and just kind of‑‑ I can remember the exact moment, just feeling a little, Ah, that hurt. THE MODERATOR: Clarify what happened to the ribs. JEFF MAGGERT: Actually I was in Colorado snow skiing. Didn't do it on the slopes. I slipped in a parking lot. THE MODERATOR: In the grocery. JEFF MAGGERT: I wasn't doing a triple black diamond and doing crazy stuff. Just trying to stay in one piece and get out of there without any injuries, and there you go. You slip and break it right in the parking lot. But that was a tough injury. Wasn't something that you could‑‑ not something you can put a cast on. Actually, I went to Hawaii not really knowing it was broken and played the Mercedes Championship and the Hawaiian Open under a lot of pain. Then had the x‑ray taken while I was over there. Took about eight weeks off, but it was just sore for a long time. I think it affected my golf swing more than anything for at least 12 months. It was such a sharp pain when I would hit a golf shot that it just lingers in my mind. You're expecting that little sharp pain on your side. Even though I was healed pretty well and the pain wasn't there, it was still kind of in the back of my mind. Probably altered my swing a little bit to alleviate some of the pain. Really fought my golf swing probably 2007, 2008. So that's just part of playing the TOUR though. You got to roll with it. I've been fortunate with 22 years out here. Not complaining. Q. What's your exempt status? JEFF MAGGERT: I actually started the year on a major medical, but I went to the tour school last fall because I wanted to try to improve on that major medical position. Played well at the tour school last fall. My major medical is for about 10 tournaments, so I wanted to have a little bit of a backup plan for the rest of the year. Played pretty well in those 10 tournaments at the beginning, but I was a little bit short of making the money to be exempt for the rest of the year. So I did have to fall back on my tour school category in the spring. Worked out good. Q. Did that put some pressure on you to try and get that 125 to keep going out here? JEFF MAGGERT: Earlier in the year I was really trying to focus and play well. I feel like I'm kind of getting over the hump of that. Obviously getting close to turning 50, being fully exempt next year would be a bonus for me. My birthday is in February, so I'll be 49 next year in February and then 50 in 2014. Being exempt for all of next year would be nice. Q. (No microphone.) JEFF MAGGERT: Yeah, you know. I wasn't really thinking of shooting a particular score. It's just seemed like the last few years here guys are just lighting it up. I just wanted to try to make a lot of birdies and not really think about if I was shooting 64 or 60 or, you know. Did someone shoot 59 here? THE MODERATOR: Goydos a couple years ago, yeah. JEFF MAGGERT: I think that was the year that I played well. You never know. It can happen. A guy that's lingering around 7‑, 8‑, 9‑under can come out tomorrow and shoot 10‑under all of a sudden he's in the lead. There is a lot of guys, just briefly looking at the board, 9‑, 10‑, 11‑under, so you're going to have to make some birdies at weekend to have a chance. Q. (Question regarding No. 9.) JEFF MAGGERT: I had a good shot in 9. Yesterday I bogeyed 18. Hit kind of a poor drive but recovered well and missed a little four‑footer. Maybe a little payback for the way I finished yesterday. Q. Any plans change for the weekend? JEFF MAGGERT: It's just you got to be aggressive. You know, 2‑ or 3‑under each day an not going to be good enough. You just got to play well. I feel like I need another really good score, too. Feel like I need a 7‑ or 8‑under the next Saturday or Sunday to keep myself in position. You don't expect to come out and shoot 9‑under par every day, but I feel like I'm going to need one more really good round and then another round that's solid. Q. Any difference in the golf course between morning yesterday and today? JEFF MAGGERT: The course played really soft this afternoon. I don't know if it was cloud cover or the humidity just keeping the moisture in the ground. I know they've had to put a lot of water in the course because of heat last week. Thought it would be a little drier this afternoon. I think the humidity and cloud cover kept things moist. Late in the day we were still shooting right at the pins. You know, shooting darts kind of. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|