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SONY OPEN IN HAWAIIJanuary 11, 2014Chris KirkHONOLULU, HAWAII JOHN BUSH: Chris Kirk joins us here at the Sony Open in Hawai'i, our 54‑hole leader by one shot over Will Wilcox. If we can get some comments on your round today, Chris. CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, sure. Today was a nice day to get out with 5‑under for sure. I didn't hit the ball quite as well as I have the last few days, but was able to make some really good par saves on the front and convert my birdies when I had good chances and just that continued throughout the day, thankfully. I had one of those days yesterday where I feel like I was playing great, and it's funny to say that, shot 6‑under the first day and 5‑under today and 1‑under yesterday, and I feel like I played better today than I did either of the other two days. I guess that's just the way golf goes sometimes. Q. Real shootout it looks like on our hands tomorrow with a really bunched‑up leaderboard. What will your thought process be? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, just to not get too worried about what happens any given hole. When it's so close like that, everybody is going to be making some birdies here and there but making some bogeys, and that's just kind of the way it goes on this golf course. So I probably won't look at leaderboards as much as I normally would. A lot of courses I think lend themselves to you need to know what your position is going into any given hole, but out here I don't think that's really the case. They're just so volatile with guys making birdies and bogeys. So I'll just probably try to keep my head down and make as many birdies as I can. Q. Last year Langley and Henley were 17‑under after two days. Conditions are not real different. Any reasons for the difference in scores? CHRIS KIRK: Golf course was a lot softer last year is the main difference. Which makes the greens obviously a lot more receptive and not quite as fast. This year the greens being a little bit faster make greens that are always tricky even trickier, and then the fairways are just that much more difficult to hit and the greens are that much more difficult to hit, also. Q. How did you birdie 18? CHRIS KIRK: I hit a really, really good tee shot, which with the wind in your face on 18, it's never an easy tee shot but it's just such a difficult tee shot. So I hit a really good tee shot and then had a 2‑iron in and just blocked it a little bit into the right bunker and hit what I would say was a pretty decent bunker shot, not great, to about 10 feet or so left of the hole and made a little downhill left‑to‑right slider from 10 feet. Q. How many tournaments have you been around in where there's been‑‑ when it's just stacked like this? CHRIS KIRK: It happens from time to time. Obviously last year I think was a little bit of an outlier but I think it happens a lot here when the course plays firm and fast. I don't know, I've been around it a few times, and I would say my win at the McGladrey last year was sort of a similar situation, a similar style golf course, also, where I was tied for the lead there, I'm in the lead here, but it's not like you're going out there to protect anything when there's 20 guys right behind you. You know you've got to go out there and go get it. Q. Did you look at any boards today? CHRIS KIRK: No, I looked‑‑ when I was done on 17 I looked and saw that I was tied for the lead. I really had no idea for most of the day. I mean, I could sort of‑‑ you can sense it with just the way that‑‑ how often the camera guy is standing right behind you and how people are reacting and that type of thing. So I knew I was right around it but didn't really know that I was tied for the lead until I walked off 17. Q. What happened to you on 10? CHRIS KIRK: Just a bad tee shot, really, and then a sequence of very mediocre shots after that, I guess. I hit it over there left and really wasn't in a bad spot other than the lie that I had. It was really into the grain and real heavy, so I tried to factor that in, hit it pretty hard, but it just came out so dead, it didn't carry up to the green, and then a little bit of the same on that next chip shot. The grain was kind of going straight away from me, the green was going away from me, and from a thick lie I thought I could kind of dump it out on the green, for lack of a better term, and get it to run down there, and it just came out really dead and landed softer than I anticipated that it would. Q. How are you balancing this time being away from your three week old and playing pretty well both weeks? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah. It's hard. I miss them a lot, and I wish I was there right now. But obviously this is my job, and my wife and my family, they understand that I need to go some. The Humana tournament next week is a tournament that I really like a lot and have always played, and I won't be playing this year just because of that situation. I'm going to go home for two weeks. But yeah, it's definitely hard. It's funny, talking to my wife last night, I asked her if they had watched any, because an almost two year old, also, and she said, no, not really, Sawyer cries every time he sees you on TV because I'm not at home. It just reminds him that I'm gone. It's definitely difficult right now being away from them, so I'm very excited to be heading home tomorrow night. Q. Do you think she'll watch tomorrow? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, I don't know. You'll have to call my wife and ask her about that. Q. I brought up the thing about Georgia earlier. Is there anything, any common denominator that this place has that helps at all? CHRIS KIRK: Bermudagrass is probably about it. And there's a lot of good players from Georgia. Q. I lost track of ages here; were you and Harris at Georgia together? CHRIS KIRK: No, Harris got to school a year after I left. I think he's 24 and I'm 28, so we just missed each other. Q. Henley? CHRIS KIRK: Henley is the same year as Harris. I didn't play with him, either. I got to know‑‑ I was there at school when those guys came on their recruiting trips and got to know them reasonably well then, and obviously both really good guys and both really great players, so it's a pretty unbelievable graduating class between the two of them and then Hudson Swafford, also. I did get to play a year with Hud. He had shoulder surgery at some point during college and red‑shirted a year. He was a freshman my senior year but ended up graduating with those other two. Q. How do you know it wasn't Harris? CHRIS KIRK: I've gotten better over the years, but I consider myself a very close friend of both of them, and I still every now and then‑‑ it hasn't happened in a while, it'll probably happen now that you're talking about it, every now and then I'll call them by the wrong name. Even though I'll be sitting there at dinner with them and I know who it is, and it's just‑‑ I don't know. Q. You talked Monday about this. Did you shoot 73 on Monday at Kapalua? CHRIS KIRK: Even par. Q. But it was still a good day for you considering how you struck it. When you're trying to shake rust off, if you will, to start the year, does a round like that, that's all about salvaging or scoring as good a boost as anything? CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, absolutely. Today was one of those days, too. I definitely didn't hit the ball well enough to shoot 65 today, I'll be honest with you, but I made some really good saves when I needed to, and I didn't make a‑‑ I haven't made a putt outside 15 feet yet this week, and have probably only made one outside 10 feet. So I haven't been making a whole lot of putts. My chipping and my bunker game has been really good when I've missed greens, and yesterday I had a rough day putting. But today was just kind of one of those days just sort of found a way to get it done. Q. How much consistency do you think you've had from your time on TOUR? CHRIS KIRK: I'd say it's been overall pretty good. Not great my rookie year. I think I only made just over half my cuts my rookie year, but I think that I've become a more efficient player probably since then. I remember my rookie year if I had a bad day putting, I'd be looking for a different putter to switch to and be doing stuff like that. You look at the guys out here that get the most out of their game, Stricker and Zach and Kuch and all those guys, that's the thing that I think I've learned from the most is just how efficient those guys are. I mean, it's pretty cool to play with Adam Scott and watch that style of golf and watch how just immensely talented and just makes it look so easy swinging the club, but that's not me. I don't have as good of a swing as Adam Scott does. I can hit the ball pretty good sometimes, but I think I've learned way more from those other guys and just trying to be as efficient as I possibly can. JOHN BUSH: Chris, we appreciate your time. Play well tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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