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AMERICAN CENTURY CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 18, 2013Michael PhelpsSTATELINE, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: It's a privilege to have the most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 medals, 18 are gold. He's obviously the gold standard. This is his first visit here. And he's now dove into the deep end of golf, I should say. Michael we have you facing Lake Tahoe in case you get the urge. But in preparation of this event, he's been working with swing coach Hank Haney. Great to have you here. Welcome for the first time and I guess now that you've had a little time to think about it, let's start this off. You've had a few months off. Are you thinking about Rio a few years from now? MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, really, come on, guys. That's the question we're starting with? I signed my retirement papers after London. There are no plans to head back to swim in Rio. I did everything that I really wanted to do, and that's how I wanted to hang my suit up when I retired. So I do enjoy just kind of being on my own schedule and being able to play golf whenever I want and being able to travel whenever I want. It is challenging. I feel like this is more work than I guess when I was competing, just because I'm never home and I'm constantly living out of a suitcase. But it's fun. It's enjoyable, and I'm excited for Tahoe. I've heard so many great things about it. And this being my first time up here, I was really looking forward to it coming up. Q. You mentioned busy schedule. Obviously last night at the ESPYs here in Lake Tahoe for the next few days. Have you had had much of a chance to work on your golf game? MICHAEL PHELPS: I try to get out a couple times a week. There are a lot of days where I don't have anything to do. But I just travel so much. So if I do have a day where I'm just sitting around, then I'll go out hit a couple. I guess I'm always joking because it's always hard because whenever I want to go out during the week if I'm home everybody has a job. So it kind of stinks. I'm like calling or texting somebody to go golf and they're like, dude, I have a nine to five. Come on, can't you just, take today off. No, I did that last week so I don't think I can do it this week. But it's always funny. And sometimes I can get people to take a day off of work to go play with me. Q. What has Hank told you about this particular event? MICHAEL PHELPS: He hasn't told me anything yet. I think he's probably just going to let me figure it out on my own. And I'll see him I guess out here this afternoon or tomorrow and I'm sure he'll be with me on the range, showing me a couple of things again. Q. So this is your first time in Lake Tahoe? MICHAEL PHELPS: It is, my very first time traveling up here. Q. Where is your handicap now as opposed to a year ago? And then just basic, are you going to play as an amateur or professional? MICHAEL PHELPS: My handicap still is not very good. Let's be honest. I mean, I really don't even have like a real registered handicap. I mean, it's probably 18, 20, maybe. I couldn't even literally couldn't even break 110 last year, 115. I could do nothing. I've had a couple of rounds in the mid‑80s, and then so it's decent. It's coming around. What was the other question? Q. Amateur or professional for this week? MICHAEL PHELPS: I don't know. Because I mean PING is a sponsor. So I don't know if that puts me in which category. Q. Take the money and run, if you want. MICHAEL PHELPS: (Laughter). Q. I want to ask you a baseball question to mix it up here a little bit. There's a lot of players here. Rumors you're a baseball fan, Royals fan? MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah. Q. Rumor is you were practicing on some of your baseball skills here recently, or no? MICHAEL PHELPS: I didn't know I was. Q. Just a rumor. We're trying to get you involved in other sports, you know. Are you willing to take pitching lessons from me at some point in time? MICHAEL PHELPS: Sure, I guess it wouldn't hurt. Q. One, you mentioned that this is your first time in Tahoe. Do you have any plans or anything that you were hoping to do while you're here? MICHAEL PHELPS: I'm somebody that is probably the worst planner in the world. So I'm just going to enjoy everything here. I don't really know much to do. I don't know if the lake would be cold. I assume it's probably going to be a little chilly. So it's probably means I'm not going out there. But who knows. It's going to be fun just to be able to have all these athletes here and these celebrities here who all of us are so competitive in everything that we do and working against each other. So I think it's going to be a pretty cool event for me to watch and be a part of. Q. To piggyback on that question, you've excelled in what you did. Now golf is somewhat humbling. How hard is it to swallow not being as good as you would like to be? MICHAEL PHELPS: It's brutal. I don't understand how it can be that hard to hit this little tiny white ball and hit it straight every time. But it just doesn't happen for me. But it's been an eye‑opening experience for me just because I've usually been able to pick everything up fairly quickly. And this has been a sport where, when I was with Hank on the Haney Project for six months, we must have hit almost 20,000 balls. And I still have calluses and blisters and taping up the hands almost every day. But those are the things for me to be able to really learn how to play this sport and to really try and, I don't want to say master the sport because the pros, the pros don't even mess with the sport but just to be where I want to be. I have a goal of being able to be a low handicapped golfer. For me to do that it's going to take a lot of time and it's going to take a lot of frustration. But I'm going to stay with it. I just love being able to be outside. But also being able to have a couple of good shots around. That's what makes me happy. And the more I can back‑‑ like back to back to back shots up, that just shows that I'm improving and we're starting to see that a little bit more. Q. Now that you're no longer swimming competitively, how has your diet changed? MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I guess when I first retired there was a period where I was about 220 pounds. I competed at 187. So we decided that we had to change up the caloric intake we were having daily. And I'm now back down to about 200. So it's fun. But I don't do that much so I know my body doesn't need that much. But it is challenging, because I'm used to eating everything and everything‑‑ everything and anything as much as I want whenever I wanted it. And now it's like I kind of have to pick and choose where I'm going. Q. You mentioned how you would hit 20,000 balls with Hank Haney. Looking back on those early days, how do you think your game has evolved since when you first started? MICHAEL PHELPS: I was terrible, like the worst. Like I saw somebody on the plane next to me, I was looking at the Golf Digest showing my before and after swing. It's literally night and day. I would just go out and hack around. And now it's like‑‑ I wouldn't say it's like super consistent, but I do know how to hit all different kinds of shots and that's something that Hank taught me. And I can get up and feel confident about every club in my bag but one, the driver. I can't stand that thing. That thing is so annoying. Sometimes it's really good. Sometimes he's not nice. But I learned the game. I understand the game. Now it's just trying to I say perfect, but improve on skills that I don't have or that I lack. And I know just from talking to everybody and from being out here and practicing, it's going to take a lot of time, and I'm ready. Q. Lake Tahoe is 22 miles long, 12 miles across. How long would it take you to swim across it? MICHAEL PHELPS: 12 myself right now would probably take me I don't know eight hours, is that right. 12 miles. Yeah, probably. Six hours. I'm not very fast anymore. (Laughter). I don't swim anymore. Q. Do you ever just maybe lie in bed at night and go: Man, 18 gold medals, or is that kind of past you now? MICHAEL PHELPS: What I did in the swimming world, you know it means a lot to me. There was a goal of mine, it all started with a goal to be able to change the sport and do something that nobody else had ever done, and that's what I did. And, sure, I do have 22 medals. But that doesn't really define who I am. I'm still goal‑oriented. There's still things I want to achieve. So I try not to really get caught up on looking at those, because there's so much more that I want to do and I know that I can do, even though I'm not swimming, but to help the sport of swimming. That's what I want to continue to do. It's the next page, next chapter in the book of my life. And it's just‑‑ I will say I can look back and say I've done everything I wanted to. When I retired I wanted to say those exact words and I can say that. Q. You did what you wanted to in swimming and now we're talking about golf, but at such a young age, what do you want to do with the rest of it? MICHAEL PHELPS: It's crazy. My agent gave me a thing that said: What do you want to be in five years, 10 years, 15 years. He said just write stuff down. Whatever comes to your head. And it's still today tough to me because I'm used to writing down times or this that I wanted to do or splits. And now it's like, oh my gosh, like this is a different world. So I have learned a little bit over the last year. I guess just how to set goals on things I want to do and change outside of the pool. And that's what I'm working on myself to do. Q. Where do you keep the medals, and did you bring any here? MICHAEL PHELPS: I do not travel with any of them. They're just in a secret place, I will say that. That's all I'll say. I won't give away my hiding place. But I literally have looked at them all together maybe once. Maybe once. My mom, I don't think, has seen them all. My sister's seen them all, and that's really it. Q. Is this the first competition that you're going to keep score and play for money will you be‑‑ you'll be nervous, but a different nervous. I'm sure you were nervous when you got on the blocks but you knew what you were able to do. Here you'll be nervous and wonder where it's going to go? MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah, and I think being able to like I played in the Pro‑Am at the Ryder Cup and I played Waste Management and I played a couple of other Pro‑Ams that were really nerve cracking, like Medinah, going out there in front of thousands and thousands of people, I was so nervous I couldn't put a tee in the ground. I had to take a 3‑wood, crank the tee and put the ball on top so my hands weren't shaking so much. And the same kind of thing was at Waste Management, what was it, 16, that little par 3 with 30,000 people yelling and screaming at you the entire time. I was getting booed on a par 3, 130‑yard hole four times. So it's‑‑ I mean, I've been able to experience all that stuff. So I'm hoping I'm going to be fine here. I'm just going to try to go out and have as much fun as I can, that's really the main thing. Q. Just recently been reported in the news that childhood obesity in the United States has finally leveled off thanks in no small part to foundations like yours that draw attention to it and promote healthy, active lifestyles for children. What are your goals this year for your foundation and any news you can share with us about anything that's happening? MICHAEL PHELPS: The biggest thing is that's the reason for my foundation is for kids to live healthy and active lifestyles and to teach them how to swim. That's something very important as well since drowning for children I guess under the age of 14 is number two in our country. There's some things that need to be changed. You do see things going down. You see people exercising more and more. And with my foundation, the I Am Program, we work with the Boys and Girls Club. And I guess in four years over 3,000 kids have become water safe. It helps them believe in themselves. Helps them goal set. Helps them see that anything's possible and whatever you want to accomplish, you can. And it's been cool being able to get some of the stories that I've gotten from kids who have overcome fears, who have started heading in the right direction in goals they want achieve, and that's something that excites me and that's one of my favorite things. Q. Back to golf a little bit. I keep hearing some general things about your game and the improvement. And I think about the improvement from low 100s down to mid‑80s. Give me some specifics on the actual strengths of your game. What have you and Hank worked on in terms of feeling the greens, and in fact didn't I see a video where you sank a long putt recently? MICHAEL PHELPS: That was a blind swing. That was nothing. I could do it again, out of a hundred times I'll never do it. A lot of the things that he really worked with me in the beginning from the get‑go was really grip, just getting a stronger grip, having a better take‑away. And just literally starting from scratch and if I could have counted how many times I heard: Swing out more to the right and close it or: Shorter and faster. If I had like a penny for every time I heard that during the show, I think I could be a millionaire by the time we've done that show for six months. But it's so true, and he was so great in how he coached, and that's exactly what I needed. I needed repetition. And that is the highest form of learning. So those‑‑ it was all the small things from the beginning that we really worked on and he would just let me get up and hit it. We worked on little shorter shots, or we worked on stinger, like a 3‑wood stinger just to keep everything low. So we've literally worked on every single shot and feel pretty confident I can go out and exercise that at any course. Q. Hank mentioned in an interview a couple weeks ago he anticipates you being the great athlete you are, and as quick as you're getting the handicap down, to shoot somewhere between 85 and 95 this week. Folks over at the Harrah's race and sports book, have you at 100 to 1. Don't worry, Barkley's at 500 to 1? MICHAEL PHELPS: To win? Let's be honest, I could go out, shoot 80 in three and still be terrible. Not be good. That wouldn't even be Top 10. Q. What do you hope to accomplish out here this week? MICHAEL PHELPS: I just want to have fun. That's the biggest thing. I enjoy playing golf with some of these guys. And I was coming in last night on the plane from the ESPYs, and it was Ahmad and Ray Allen, we were talking about golf, we had all our golf stories. That's the cool thing, we all just love the sport. Even though it's a very challenging sport and a very humbling sport, we all still love to go out there and play any course, because you'll never‑‑ you'll never see the same course twice. Like two courses aren't the exact same. If you replay a course, the same hole possibly could not even be able to played the same exact same way you played it before. I think that's something that's pretty neat about the sport, because for me, in a swimming pool, I saw a black line on the bottom and I saw like 78 degree water and lane lines. There's really not much you can change. Q. I'm sure Hank Haney had something to do with you getting from there to here. We're glad you're here but could you tell me how you were asked to be here and how quick you said yes? MICHAEL PHELPS: Hank he wanted me to play in it last year. I wasn't ready for it last year. And after working together with him, finishing the show, I think he just feels like he has confidence. And they asked and I said yes, I would love to go to Tahoe. I've heard so many great stories about it. And I've been I guess I'm excited to see some of the guys out here, because I guess a lot of us have traveled to come to a couple of the like the charity foundation events and we all play together. And every single one of them is looking forward to coming to Tahoe. So I get to see what all the hype is about and I'm looking forward to it. Q. There was an episode where you got Hank in the water. And I think you gave him some pin put on his swimming strokes. MICHAEL PHELPS: I went easy on him. Q. All right. What I want is how quick of a learner was Hank? MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I don't think he fully believed himself when I gave him the time that I thought he could do in a 50. So I kind of made it a little slower. But I mean it was just‑‑ I enjoy stuff like that because it's a cool role reversal. I always said to‑‑ I told Bob I wanted to do that to him, my coach growing up in the sport of swimming. I was like: Why can't you get in the pool, I'll literally just go ballistic on you for 30 minutes. That's all I want is 30 minutes. I could destroy you in 30 minutes. He never lets me do it. Hank, he's a good learner. He swims almost every day. He spends a lot of time in the pool. He told me he wants to be a better swimmer. So I guess whenever we're in Cabo together you can always tell he went to the pool because you can always smell the chlorine. He enjoys it. Q. You mentioned the 16th hole at the Waste Management down in Arizona. You have the 17th hole here, par 3, about 170 yards with boats pulled up, people in bathing suits. MICHAEL PHELPS: I thought it was shorter. Q. It might be. But I think the crowd's going to be very receptive to you out there. MICHAEL PHELPS: I guess if I hit it in I have to jump in. Q. I think they're going to be calling for you for that? MICHAEL PHELPS: Should I bring the Speedo down? THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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