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HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONSJanuary 2, 2014Adam ScottKAPALUA, HAWAII KELLY BARNES: Adam, you're making your first start here since 2011, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, a lot has happened in your career since then, including obviously this year, the Masters and The Barclays. Can you talk to us about how it feels to come to the Hyundai Tournament of Champions this year with everything that's happened in the last couple years, particularly this year? ADAM SCOTT: Yeah, sure. Obvious, it's always good to qualify for this event, and a couple times I have qualified and decided not to come and I've ended up regretting it because I like coming here so much. It was nice that I got in here this year and I definitely made room for it in the schedule. I like both this event and the one next week, but certainly I think come and play with only the champions in the field is an honor and hopefully get my kind of 2014 PGA TOUR campaign off to a good start this week. Q. Can you talk about how the conditions have been this week and are they a little bit different than you recall in other trips here? ADAM SCOTT: Well, the weather has been good this week. I think I've been here since Sunday and we've had nice days to practice every day. However, the course is a lot softer than I remember it. And maybe we had no rain that year. But just the fairways are quite soft. There's not a lot of roll and the greens are very soft. It's an interesting kind of soft, but they are holding the golf ball very well. So if the wind gets up, that's going to help us a little bit. But it's not quite as fiery as what I'd like to see it. Q. Could you just talk about that four‑week stretch you had back home, and what it felt like going back as Masters champ and how much pressure you felt, and then to perform the way you did for four straight weeks. ADAM SCOTT: Well, it was all a lot of fun, because everyone kind of praised me wherever I went with the green jacket, and then I played good on top of that, so I had a good month. It wasn't too difficult. It was a great trip home. But I think in some ways, the pressure was off and in other ways I put a little more pressure on myself to perform and wanted to put kind of an exclamation mark at the end of my year that I had. So I got pretty focused on the golf side of things for a month and played a lot of good golf, and tried to balance that with a fair few commitments around all the golf. But it was a great experience, and you know, probably a month of my life that I'll look back on fondly as the first time I went home after winning the Masters and even six or eight months later after winning, to see what kind of effect and enthusiasm and excitement everyone had for the event back in April was really nice for me to see that they appreciated it so much. Q. You had a very successful time in Australia but probably quite draining, too. We know you're taking a break after the Sony and you're changing away from your schedule that you had all plotted out, and that was sort of your secret to your success for the majors. Are you worried about that at all? ADAM SCOTT: I don't think I'm changing anything. I'm just putting one tournament in and taking another one out. I didn't play until L.A. last year, so I got six or seven, probably ten‑week break, and I'm getting six this year because I'm playing here. So if I can get off to a good start here, I think I'll be able to enjoy a break and then come back ready for the Florida Swing and be in the best shape possible for the Masters. That's kind of what I'm basing the schedule on. Q. Because of the way the schedule is now, where there's six events in the last calendar year and now there's this, and that means that the FedExCup has got six more events but yet everything is so much more compressed, how much does that effect your thought process and how much you wanted to play, is the Majors still the bigger focus‑‑ you played HSBC‑‑ ADAM SCOTT: No. Q. So you haven't played any yet? ADAM SCOTT: No. Q. So you'll have played two events by the time you get to Florida, that means the third event will be like the 12th or 13th event on the PGA TOUR for you, which is different. Can you talk about the whole dynamic and how that effects going into the FedExCup? ADAM SCOTT: Obviously it's a change in the schedule overlapping the calendar year. I haven't given it a lot of thought but there are always changes and they are made for the better I guess, of the TOUR, and we'll just see. As far as thinking about the FedExCup, I think as long as you make it to Barclays, you've got a chance to win, because if you have two good weeks out of the four, then you have a good chance going into THE TOUR Championship no matter where you're ranked and that's the beauty of the FedExCup I guess in some ways. It's volatile in that sense. So I'm not too worried about that. I base my schedule the same like I just said. I base it to be prepared the best for Majors. Not too worried about the points at the start of the year. Hopefully they will accumulate with some good play over the next couple weeks. Q. Coming off such a successful 2013, what would you consider to be a successful 2014? ADAM SCOTT: Just winning tournaments I guess. I think for me, that's kind of what I've always tried to do and I've always played and judged my success on winning tournaments. Of course, there's more to it than that, but to simplify everything, just to win some tournaments would be good. Last year it was great to win twice on the PGA TOUR. It's not easy, there are only maybe five guys two won twice or more, so it's getting harder and harder. I think winning is a good measure of success and if you can do it more than once, then I think you're probably working on all the right things and heading in a good direction. Q. Another major, or ‑‑ ADAM SCOTT: Of course, yeah. We'll see. The first one didn't come so easy. It took awhile. I'd like the second one to come quicker, but we'll see. Of course, I put a big emphasis on the majors and the world golf events, and THE PLAYERS, all the big tournaments, but the Majors is what we are out here for now, and now I've got a taste of it, I certainly want to try and get another one. Q. Winning your first major, when you think back, was it easier or harder to close the deal in a major than you may have anticipated? ADAM SCOTT: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think that certainly wasn't easy, that's for sure, from the experiences I've had, I've been in contention a few times as it comes down to the wire and none of them have been easy. And certainly the standard of golf that Angel played at the last hole and then the playoff holes didn't make it easy for me. It wasn't‑‑ there were no bogeys winning the 10th hole in a playoff. I had to birdie, and it's a hole I've probably birdied two or three times in all my rounds at Augusta. So I think it was probably more on the harder side to win a major. But that's what they are meant to be. Q. You talk about the Majors and World Golf Championships, does this tournament rank just below those, maybe a little higher than quote, unquote, normal PGA TOUR stop? ADAM SCOTT: Well, it's hard to get into ranking every tournament. I think that like I said at the start, that there's some prestige to this event because it's just the champions and whether you think it's a weaker feel or a stronger because there are only maybe 30 guys here, it's not a full field; so some people consider that weaker. But you could say everyone is a winner here and that's quite a strong thing, too. It's hard to rank. I think there's some prestige to playing this event and coming here. I don't know how tournaments‑‑ there are some clear‑cut tournaments that are obviously the majors and World events and THE PLAYERS, and for me, probably the Australian Open and then the rest of the events circled where I'd like to win any event then. Q. Going back to April, had you needed a third playoff hole, I guess would you have played 18 again‑‑ could you have played it again? ADAM SCOTT: I don't think so, not from what I remember. I think probably by the time we were at the green, it was too dark. I think it was‑‑ just thinking about walking off the 10th green after a couple minutes, the goings‑on there at the 10th, it was dark down the back of the green. Yeah, I think it would have been a tough night's sleep to come back and finish a playoff the next day. Q. Do you expect improvement from last year? ADAM SCOTT: I'm going to try to improve. I'd like to think I can, absolutely. Because if that was the best, then everything's downhill from here, which doesn't sound too good to me. So I'll be trying to improve, and keep doing a lot of things that I've been doing that have been working and try and refine them to do a little better. And then hopefully that will add up to everything being a little bit better. But I certainly think there's room for improvement in every part of my game and then clear room for improvement in certain parts of my game that I'll be working hard on. KELLY BARNES: Thank you, Adam, good luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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