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RBC CANADIAN OPENJuly 29, 2012Scott PiercyANCASTER, ONTARIO DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome the 2012 RBC Canadian Open champion, Scott Piercy. Scott, congratulations on your second TOUR win in as many years. Great week for you with the win. You moved to 13th in FedExCup standings. You earned a spot into next week's World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational field. So with that I'll just turn it over to you for some comments on the week. SCOTT PIERCY: Yeah. Getting into Akron next week is a little change of plans. I was supposed to be in Reno defending. So I have to apologize to Reno. The tournament director there has been a good friend of mine and I've worked closely with her. I know she's excited for me, and she'd want me to be in Ohio, too, if I could. So I'm just excited. DOUG MILNE: How about just take us through initial winning reactions. SCOTT PIERCY: You know, it's ‑‑ I've been playing good for a while now, and you just need a couple of good breaks here or there and just play solid. I felt like I got a good couple breaks and continued to play solid, and I'm kind of speechless, to be honest. I'm really excited to be the champion. DOUG MILNE: Okay. We'll start with some questions. Q. Scott, I'm going to ask the question right off the top. Is it still boring golf? SCOTT PIERCY: You know, that was taken a little out of context. I usually hit the ball pretty far with the driver. I like to hit driver a lot, and this golf course I felt took the driver out of my hands. So it's a mentality a little bit. I did say, however, that at the end of the week if the score is good, it is exciting. So I'm pretty excited. I hope everybody didn't take that too much the wrong way. Q. I think we took it the way exactly you said it. Scott, I wanted to ask you, too, about the golf course today. How much different was it than the previous three days as far as greens speeds go, the reception of them, the fairways? It seemed like it was a lot different golf course out there today. SCOTT PIERCY: It was a lot firmer than say Thursday. The ball was rolling out a little bit. The ball was bouncing into the greens. The greens speed was maybe a little bit quicker just because they were a little dryer, but not too bad. And the rough, a little bit of the moisture had come out of the rough. So if you hit it in the rough, it wasn't quite as penal. So you were able to play a little bit more out of the rough than just out of the fairway, compared to on Thursday. Q. How much did you hear about the golf course coming in, Scott? SCOTT PIERCY: How much did I know about it? Q. How much did you hear about it? SCOTT PIERCY: I had no idea. Q. Oh, okay. SCOTT PIERCY: Really, I didn't have any clue. Q. Couple of questions, Scott. We missed Reno last year. We were watching Stephen Williams win a tournament in Akron. SCOTT PIERCY: Who? Q. (Laughs). That's not in the transcript, is it? How did you win Reno last year? I'm just curious what it's like compared to what you did last year compared to winning while basically sitting and watching someone on TV? SCOTT PIERCY: I had the lead the whole day. I shot 61 on Saturday, which was a course record there as well. And I think I either had a one or two‑stroke lead on Sunday. And I think I shot 2‑under on Sunday. I parred the last three holes to win. Wasn't a lot different than the last few holes coming in here. I made a birdie and three or four pars to the house. Q. Just watching the ending, was that nerve wracking at all or at peace with yourself or what? SCOTT PIERCY: You know what, these guys are so good that you have to think that they're going to make the putt. And you have to prepare yourself to go to a playoff, and you have to prepare yourself to go win the playoff. So in my mind you're still in a grind mode even when you're sitting in the clubhouse. You know, obviously when we heard it on the radio that Garrigus missed before we saw it on TV. So it was kind of like what do I think. You know, it's still just ‑‑ it takes a while to hit you, but you're definitely excited and kind of let your guard down a little. Q. Lastly, you mentioned earlier all you need is a couple breaks here and there. What do you see as the couple breaks that you got today? SCOTT PIERCY: You know, whether it's a putt here, a bounce there, you never really know. If it bounces left instead of right, if it doesn't catch the lip and lip in the hole, it can lip out. Just one stroke's huge. It makes a ton of difference. And you know, the wind catches you in a funny situation. Whatever it could be. You have to be a little on the lucky side. Q. How did you handle yourself today after you made those four birdies and kind of got up into the lead? Did you keep track of what was going on behind you? SCOTT PIERCY: I had a little bit of an idea. There was a scoreboard on 8 or 9. 9 tee. So I knew that they were ‑‑ if you hit some good shots, you can make some birdies around where I did. So I knew they were going to make some birdies as well. And 7, 8, 9, 10, they can be a little dicey, so I knew where I was. Then you got to 12, 13, maybe 14, there was a leaderboard there. So I kind of had an idea of where I was, one shot back pretty much most of the day. Q. Out there with you I thought the chip‑in on 15 was huge, a bit of a momentum turner right there. SCOTT PIERCY: Yeah, it was. You never plan to chip it in on the 15th green on Sunday, second‑to‑the‑last group. There I thought I got a little unlucky with the drive and it didn't catch the fairway, and then I caught a little bit of a flier out of the rough, and lucky enough, I got a good lie. I had it straight up the hill, maybe a couple on the right, break a little left. And with the perfect lie from 20, 25 feet, you got a good chance of making it. So I was fortunate to see it go in. I didn't make a putt, it didn't seem like, the whole day after 3. You know, I was rolling it well, but putts just weren't falling, so it was nice to see a chip go in. Q. Do you feel like you're getting more comfortable with the bigger stages now, Reno and here this year? SCOTT PIERCY: Yeah. You definitely have to work into it a little bit. You know, my play this year has kind of been working in that direction, I think. And obviously when you get in those situations, you know, I was just there two weeks ago. I had ‑‑ I was close to winning. I finished third. So I was kind of in that situation a week ago. And I felt like I handled the situation nerves wise pretty well. I hit some good shots, and I'm starting to get more of a rhythm of what it takes when you're in those situations to understand and how to get things done. So I do think it's moving in that direction. Q. Just golf course back to the golf course, you mentioned before how you have a preference for the bomber's courses and hitting driver everywhere. This course obviously takes driver out of your hands a lot. Do you think you learned something about your game that you didn't know before? SCOTT PIERCY: It's an inner battle of wanting to hit driver and forcing my ‑‑ you know, it's good cop, bad cop. I gotta force myself to lay back, and that's why the boring comment. You know, I can bomb driver, but I can bring bogeys into play, where I know if I hit my 4‑iron I can hit an 8‑iron into the green, that's still aggressive. So for me sometimes being aggressive is laying up. And this week it was a perfect example of that where you don't have to force the issue. And you know, take a lot of bogeys out of play, and if you just grab the birdies as you go, it ended up pretty good. Q. Second quick one. I just want to make sure I got my facts straight. Was it five years ago in Vegas that you won the shootout down there? SCOTT PIERCY: 2007. Q. So how much did you win then? SCOTT PIERCY: Two million. Q. So a bigger payday then than today, but safe to say this would be a bigger win? SCOTT PIERCY: Yeah. That was the largest first place check in history of golf, and you know, I even said that when I won my first tournament on the Nationwide Tour, I won 92,000 on the Nationwide Tour, 95,000 when I won. In my interview there, I said I think this is worth more than the two million that I won at the Ultimate Game because it's just building blocks to get to the TOUR, and dealing with my sponsors. There's so much money to make out here that definitely this is probably worth more than the two million. Q. Did you hit 3‑wood on 5 when you drove the green or was that a driver? SCOTT PIERCY: That was a driver, just a little cut driver. Q. I wonder if you could just look ahead a little bit, just going to the Masters, what that means and if you've given it much thought. And if you haven't, would you give it some thought now. Thank you. SCOTT PIERCY: Come on, man. You know, I've always wanted to go there. I always told myself I'm not going unless I'm in the tournament. So now I can go. You know, not only the Masters to be in, but I think to be in all the majors and not have to worry about qualifying is definitely a goal, but obviously the Masters has the history and everything around it. And I look forward to it. I really do. Q. (Inaudible). SCOTT PIERCY: No, I haven't. Q. Have you been as a spectator or anything? SCOTT PIERCY: No. I said I wouldn't go unless I was playing. Q. Coming up 18 with the 10,000 people and so on, was it hard to keep your nerves about you knowing that both William and Robert potentially, you know, had 17 to finish, and it was a good chance that somebody would make birdie there. Did you feel the need to sort of press on that one? SCOTT PIERCY: 18 is a good hole. You gotta hit two good shots and you gotta hit two good putts to make a par. And you know, in the final group on Sunday when you got some nerves going, you know, McGirt's first time being there, Garrigus closed the deal before. It's tough. And you know, so they had a tall task at hand there. At the same time I'm into what I'm doing. I know that I played as good as I could have. I did my best, and you know, you're still kind of in a zone when you're walking up, and you still gotta sign your score card and make sure it's all right. So you can't really ‑‑ like I said earlier, then you have to prepare yourself for a playoff mentally. So you can't let up. Q.  Can you block the fans out of it? Like I mean can you take that or are you very aware of that? SCOTT PIERCY: You know they're there, but you kind of are in your own little bubble where you block them out because there's still stuff to get done, and you have to prepare yourself if there is that playoff. You can't think, oh, yeah, I won the golf tournament. You know, so even sitting in the scorer's tent for 15 minutes, the whole time I'm preparing myself to play in a playoff. You know, and if I lose to a birdie, then that's great. He beat me. So you just gotta stay focused until it's all over. Q. Could you just run through your birdies, 2 through 5? SCOTT PIERCY: No. 2 I hit a driver, sand wedge to about six feet, made that. No. 3 I hit 4‑iron, wedge like 18 feet, made that. Then the par‑5 I hit driver 5‑iron and then two‑putted. And then on No. 5 I hit driver and then two‑putted. Q. Also, I wanted ‑‑ not to bring up old stories, but it's still striking to see you at the start of the year with a blank hat. I remember you saying that you weren't just going to give it away. I wonder if you could talk about where you started the year and just what this win means in that context. SCOTT PIERCY: With the economy the way it is and we thought we had a couple deals lined up, that it just didn't close as quick as we thought. You know, it gave me the ability to kind of put a chip on my shoulder and go play well, and maybe create some of my own value so that I'm worth it. And you know, I had some ‑‑ obviously some great sponsors step up, and you know, I thank them for that. Q. (Inaudible)? SCOTT PIERCY: Cayden (ph.) Is a software company, like the cloud. Software as a service. Q. (Inaudible)? SCOTT PIERCY: Good. They'll be happy. So will Apex and Shift 4, Lounge Scott (ph), Titleist. Q. Scott, can you take us through 18 again? When you're standing on the tee, are you thinking that basically if you can par ‑‑ post 17 under that worst case scenario you're going to get into a playoff, and then how did you play the hole? SCOTT PIERCY: I'm trying to make birdie. I'm trying to hit a good shot off the tee. Once I do that, then I'm thinking about hitting a good shot into the green. I was a little in between clubs into the green. I had 205 to the hole with a little breeze in. And you gotta stay below the holes here at Hamilton. And 5‑iron was a little questionable. It was probably ‑‑ if I wanted to stuff one, probably the one I needed to hit, but it could have got past the hole and I didn't want to leave myself a downhiller. So I hit a 6‑iron and maybe just didn't hit it as hard as I wanted, but I kept myself below the hole. And you know, 2‑putt from there. Q. What did you hit off the tee? SCOTT PIERCY: I hit a 4‑iron off the tee. Q. Just curious about the way you played 17. What kind of lie did you have in the rough and what was the decision of going for it as you did or just giving yourself a clean 90‑yard pitch to the green? SCOTT PIERCY: You know what, I almost had the same exact lie that I had on 4, and it was the same club. The only question was that last bunker in the middle right in front of the hole was ‑‑ it was 196 to clear it, and if it came out a little soft, I didn't think the 5‑iron could clear it. So I was trying ‑‑ the rough is so thick that you gotta try to play a cut because the grass tries to hook the club, and I didn't want to aim it left and cut it into the bunker. So I aimed it a little right, trying to hit like a little hot ball, and it just kind of shot right on me a little. And I mean it was actually a pretty good lie. It was laying down grain. I just had to go get it and just didn't get on top of it as much as I wanted. DOUG MILNE: All right. Scott, congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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