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WGC ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIPFebruary 18, 2013Justin RoseMARANA, ARIZONA MICHAEL GIBBONS: Justin, good morning. Welcome back to the WGC Accenture Match Play. Give us an update on what you've been up do. You've had a nice start on the European Tour in the Middle East. JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously it's been a good off‑season. They always go by too quickly. But I treated my trip to the Middle East as in the middle of my greater off‑season time. So essentially I see this week as the start of my season. Things get busy from here. I'm looking forward to playing golf again, looking forward to getting those competitive juices going again. I've been working hard at home, working out in the gym, practicing, just doing what you do, really, just making sure that you're switching off from the game, spending time with the kids because I think the most important thing is when you're starting a long run to be mentally excited and fresh for that. MICHAEL GIBBONS: You spent a bit of time with Donald Trump at the basketball. JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, so I was down there getting ready for Doral and doing some media stuff for the tournament and hanging out with the Donald, which is good. I must say it was interesting being down in Miami. It's a crazy town, a fun place to be, and took in a Heat game. No doubt, Donald Trump is excited about what he's doing there with the renovations at Doral. I think it's going to be a special place. Obviously I did a media day there, and you can already start to see some of the changes he's going to make, but obviously the greater changes will happen after this year's tournament. MICHAEL GIBBONS: Quick word on your opponent, K.J. JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, K.J. Presidents Cup player many times over, experienced Match Play player, great player, tough game, absolutely. It's probably good to go into a game thinking you've got a tough game because there are no easy games in this format. Yeah, there'll certainly be no complacency. Q. Match Play has been quite kind to you over the last few years, medal Match Play in Turkey. You've got quite a roll call of victims there with Lee and Tiger and Phil at the Ryder Cup. Is there something this week, because of that storm, is there something you're excited about to keep that on a roll? JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, absolutely. I think I definitely would like to sort of ride that wave of momentum and confidence, I guess. There was a couple matches in Turkey that I did‑‑ I pulled off a shot when I had to, obviously the Ryder Cup against Phil pulled off a shot when I had to. You can't always call on that on demand. It's always a little bit of fortune to hit the right shot at the right time. But certainly the lesson I learned there is to be patient, even if you get down in a match, keep doing your thing and limit the mistakes and just believe that you can turn it around still. I think a mistake other guys may make is when you get behind in a match you may start to push a little too much and then you start to give away cheap holes, and that's what you can't afford to do at this level. The experience I've gained the last six months match play‑wise will help me this week. Q. (No microphone.) JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I've never done particularly well here. I think I might have had a good run, might have been 2007. So yeah, it's a great tournament to get going deep into the field because you turn up on the Saturday‑‑ I think I got to Saturday morning, which is the quarterfinals, right, and it's almost an eerie feeling. The car park gets very quiet, there's not many lads on the range. It's nice, you feel like you're getting down to business. It'll be nice to experience that this year. Q. What are some of the unique challenges that this course presents? JUSTIN ROSE: I think it's quite a fiddly golf course in terms of the pin placement and the greens. The greens definitely have a lot of movement to them, and you often get pins that are cut on little shelves, three‑, four‑yard shelves. It's just knowing which side to miss it, especially on the par‑5s. The entrance into the par‑5s are typically very narrow, so it's quite hard to sometimes thread the ball up onto the green. But you know, you need to know which side of the green is best to miss to give yourself a chance to up‑and‑down it. There's a little bit of course knowledge from that perspective, but there's also a lot of feeder pins, too, if you hit the right shot, back left on 1, for example, if you hit the right shot you can work the ball close to the pin. From that perspective, certain pins you know which to be aggressive and which to respect. I think that's the one thing that stands out for me here. Q. At what point, if at all, does Augusta come into your thoughts? Do you build up toward it as early as now? JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I don't think it's as early as now. I think I'm just kind of sort of get some momentum going right now, trying to find a rhythm and get my game going. Certainly Florida Swing I always feel is the start the having the Masters in your mind. This year my schedule might be a little bit different in terms of there might be two weeks off before Augusta. Quite a lot of players are going to probably have that schedule this year, and that's somewhat different. So I might only start to really turn my attention to Augusta around Bay Hill time. Q. I know you guys don't lack for confidence, but is there something about Match Play that if you've had recent success, does it carry over at all into something like this? JUSTIN ROSE: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Geoff Ogilvy had a couple years where he kept that momentum going. Did Henrik Stenson keep it going one year to the next? So I think you really sort of‑‑ yeah, obviously confidence and having a little bit of nous to play match play. I think there's definitely some tricks to the trade. You have some great match play players, obviously you can say Geoff Ogilvy, Henrick, Ian Poulter, they are all great match play players. It comes down to making putts at the right time. There's always a big putt in match play. You can play a stroke‑play event, so Wednesday is my first round of the PGA TOUR season, but I'll face putts and face emotions that are almost like the back nine of a Sunday because there's going to be a key putt in the round, whether it's to stay all square on 16, whether it's to go 1‑up on 17, and those are the key moments that you face typically at the end of a tournament, but you face it from round one. So I think that's the difference in match play. Q. Does it get you going into the season real quick, having that important putt on the first 12 holes? JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it's a good thing if I'd played a couple of tournaments leading into this, maybe be a bit more familiar with those feelings or if it's the first week, it's nice to sort of no matter what happens this week having faced those emotions is going to help me going forward. Who knows how the week plays out. It's a very hard tournament to prepare for 100 percent because you can go out and play nice nicely on Wednesday, could go home, you could scrap through, not be particularly pleased with your game go through. It's a bit of a pinch of salt this week, too, in terms of how you view it for the rest of the year. But you've definitely got to try and get into each match individually and just do what's needed, do what's required, and that's what it comes down to. What I was saying earlier, just trying to find that right shot at the right time, if you're 1‑down, hit the great shot at 17 or whatever it might be. But that's the intent is just to do enough to win your game. Q. Where are you in your putting now? Is it something you think you've solved totally? JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I'm really, really, really happy with my putting. Putting comes and goes, I guess, a little bit. Sometimes you see the line or the speed of the greens change a little bit, and some weeks you just get your feel perfectly. But my understanding of what I'm trying to achieve in my putting is rock solid right now, there's no more searching, and that's a really nice feeling, to go to the putting green, I'm confident in my stroke, I'm not trying to change anything, I believe in myself. And I've got a good set of drills that I'm working on and I'm beginning to see what I think is change. Hopefully this year it'll be a bit more consistent. I had a great year last year, but the putting is one area that early in the season I wasn't happy with, wasn't happy with. I had my moments where I putted well and that's great, but I'd like to be more consistent, and that's what I'm working towards, and I'm getting there. Q. How often do you see Dave? JUSTIN ROSE: I probably see him monthly, once a month or a checkup. The good thing is now is it's a lot less stroke focus and it's a lot more putting drills and reading the greens and doing all that type of stuff because I definitely think there's a differentiation between your putting stroke and the art of putting. You can have a perfect stroke and still miss putts. That's also what I've begun to realize. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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