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BMW CHAMPIONSHIPSeptember 4, 2012Dicky PrideCARMEL, INDIANA DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Dicky Pride. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes here at the BMW Championship. It was great, the road for you to get here. I was with you yesterday at Deutsche Bank, and you finished in style with birdies at 17 and 18 to get potentially within the top 70 to work your way here, and you had to wait for upwards of an hour to find out, worked out in your favor, and here you are. We know you've got some ties to the area with your wife, with the director of golf here. Talk to us a little bit about how it feels to be here. DICKY PRIDE: Well, it's very exciting first of all to be in the top 70 coming from where I started at the beginning of the year, no exempt status and no real goals on this TOUR. It was more what am I going to do on the Web.com. I started off with a top 10 at México and to roll that over into being in the top 70 is pretty exciting, and I'm really proud of it. My wife is from about an hour from here in Muncie, so we have lots of friends and family coming over to support me, so I'm looking forward to that, and my wife is able to come out. So that's a pretty neat deal. And then the last reference you made was my friend Tony Pancake, who's the director of golf here at Crooked Stick, went to the University of Alabama. He was there before me, but I've known him since I was about 12 or 13, and I know his brother Jamie and wife, and the last time I saw him was actually at the BCS game. So that was a good memory. It's kind of cool to be here with that. When you're a kid you don't think of anything like that, but then my daughter is basically at the age when I met Tony, and to think of where we started and where we are is pretty cool. DOUG MILNE: How much pressure was on you yesterday and how much was being here today in your mind when you were trying to get the job done yesterday? DICKY PRIDE: I did everything I could to not think about it. It's tough. But I tried to take the attitude of no matter what I do last week, I'm going‑‑ I've had a good year, a year no one expected, and I've played well. Just go out and play and see if it's going to get there. I kind of snuck in. It was tough watching John finish off and not‑‑ get close and not make it. We played earlier that week, and he's a friend. I mean, we're friends and competitors. I wasn't rooting for him as much as I‑‑ I don't root against anyone, but it's tough to watch a friend go through that because I've been there, so... Q. You're coming into this event knowing you need a top 3 basically to go any further, so do you change your mindset or do you just go hard at it? You've got nothing to lose, basically. DICKY PRIDE: Yeah, that's the whole thing. I've got nothing to lose, so go play and see how good you can play. There's no worries about playing poorly or doing anything like that. You just stick to your game plan, know which pins you're going to shoot for and just go for it. Worst thing that can happen is I play four days. Q. There is a precedent because last year Geoff Ogilvy was 69th and finished third and moved on and had a chance at winning $10 million. I guess you've got to be in it to win it, though, right? DICKY PRIDE: Pretty much have no choice on that one, you know? Whatever. It's one of those things, that's what you need to do, but the great way to make sure you don't do that is start trying to think about that. I played the golf course. The golf course is excellent. We got a lot of rain here yesterday, I believe, and it's drying up really nicely. It's the first time I've been around the golf course, and it's an excellent golf course. Very difficult, very fair. It's going to be a good test. Q. Forgive me for not knowing, but if you had no exempt status at the beginning of the year, how did you get here? DICKY PRIDE: I still have no exempt status. I'm in the past champions category, which is the last category that gets in tournaments, and I'm No.1 in that, so that's nice. But I got in on the number to México and top‑10'd, finished fifth, and that got me in Honda and top‑10'd there and I've kind of snowballed it from there. I've gotten in some invitationals because of my FedEx status because I still earned points, so that's how I got in the FedExCup, was earning points throughout the year. Q. Well, you're good for next year then? DICKY PRIDE: I am good for next year. Might even be able to make a plan for next year. Q. I understand your wife is a Hoosier? DICKY PRIDE: My wife is a Hoosier, Muncie Central Bearcat, baby. Got to love it. Q. What's her name? DICKY PRIDE: Her name is Kim. Q. Kim what? DICKY PRIDE: Pride. We do the wife thing. Her maiden name is Shearer. Q. Pgatour.com is live this week on a couple of the par‑3s on 13 and 17. Wondering since you've played the golf course if you could walk us through what your approach on those two kind of difficult par‑3s are. DICKY PRIDE: 13 and 17? Well, 13 is the shorter of the two. It's about‑‑ around 170 yards. It's like 158, I believe, to the front. But a very steep green. Back right pin, you're basically going to try to play to the middle of the green because it's only going to feed back down and to the right, and front pin you're going to have to keep it short of that and it'll feed all the way. It was a little soft today so the front pin was more accessible. But when the tournament comes around and it gets firmer it's going to be difficult to hold on that top shelf. Basically anything on the right side you're going to hit towards the middle of the green and feed it in, and the front left you're going to try to hit it high and soft and hope you don't hit it in the left rough because it's downhill from there. 17 is just a long hole. They looked like they had three different tees they were considering using, which I hope they will because like the back left pin if they play it from the back tee is like 235, which would be crazy. But from the front tee it would be probably around 180, which would be a heck of a hole. That one is more‑‑ it's a big enough green to get it on the green somewhere and have a putt. I don't know how much you're going to be shooting at pins when you're 220, so we'll just have to wait and see. DOUG MILNE: Dickie, as always, we appreciate your time. Keep it up and keep it going this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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