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HUMANA CHALLENGE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATIONJanuary 16, 2014Zach JohnsonLA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA MARK STEVENS: Zach Johnson, thank you for being here. You got to 7‑under. Talk about what was going well for you today and then we'll have some questions. ZACH JOHNSON: Sure. Today was good. I hit, I drove it off the tee great. I hit every fairway at La Quinta. That usually helps a lot on that golf course. Hit my driver tremendously. Three or four, two or three, 3‑woods and maybe a 5‑wood in there after the tee, but I just kept myself in the hole every hole. Didn't take advantage of two par‑5s with 3‑woods, 3‑woods? Maybe a 5‑wood in there too. So a couple, from the middle of the fairway, two pars on a par‑5 that I can get home, which is not, those are the two shots I kind of wish I had back, but I played solid. I hit good iron shots, the greens over there are, I don't even know how to explain them, it's like carpet, I guess. So, but got off to a good start and just kept it going. Q. Statistically speaking La Quinta is the toughest of the three courses. But? ZACH JOHNSON: Really? Q. Yeah. It's like 69.7 last year 68 over here. ZACH JOHNSON: Okay. Q. Do you sense the golf courses are any different or is it just ‑‑ ZACH JOHNSON: They're definitely different. In La Quinta it's totally different than these two. I would even say‑‑ Q. I mean not different necessarily but more difficult? ZACH JOHNSON: ‑‑ oh, okay, stroke wise? Well, I can see La Quinta being the higher stroke average more and more I think about it, because fairways are such a premium there and there's some tight tight tee shots. There's a couple of shots off the tee, especially on the Nicklaus, I would say where you can really, you don't have to be quite as straight. You can get away with a little bit. But that being said, I think that ‑‑ I don't know. I think Palmer is‑‑ there's some tough tee shots at Palmer. Palmer stroke average is lower than La Quinta? Q. Like a quarter of a stroke. ZACH JOHNSON: Okay. I can see those two being pretty close. Q. Throw a blanket over them? ZACH JOHNSON: Yeah, the greens at La Quinta, they're not ridiculously fast, they're fast, but they're just pure. If it's uphill it's a little bit into the grain, if it's right to left it's a little right‑to‑left grain. I mean they're just so good. I don't know what they do over there, but they look artificial. Q. You're the second person I talked to who said the greens over there are as good as they have seen? ZACH JOHNSON: I mean they're like this every year, but they're as good as I've ever seen. It's one of those places where especially inside of 15 feet I would say if you miss the putt it's not because of the green. It's because you didn't hit it the right line. Q. We watched you win at Tiger's tournament and then you were off to Hawaii, now you're playing real well here, is this one of these in the zone things that just keeps going? You have to‑‑ what does it feel like you have to just every shot you stand over you must feel like, wow? ZACH JOHNSON: I feel good. I feel good the way I'm preparing, I feel good about my schedule, I feel good about my warm ups, I feel good about just staying in a competitive mind frame, it really started for me probably last summer. I just didn't win. I lost in a playoff, if I want to be completely honest. And I had a slew of top‑10s in there with a couple of Majors even. So that's really when it started. And I had a couple average weeks, but. Q. Is this your best sustained run? ZACH JOHNSON: It's got to be. I would assume it is. Especially if you put, well, two wins on TOUR and then you count Tiger's three wins, so, yeah, sure. I don't know how many top‑10s, but, yeah, it's got to be my most consistent. Q. Are you at the stage where you're starting to think about those 20 wins and that lifetime exemption? ZACH JOHNSON: I'll be thinking about the 20th win once I get to 19. If I get to 19. Which is a big if. I'm trying to just ‑‑ I guess to further your question, I'm really just trying to stay right now, in the present. And just keep, I mean tomorrow, I mean I'm going to try to forget about today. Maybe grab hold and kind of capture some of the positives from today, but for the most part I'm playing a different golf course, different greens, probably a different wind if there is any wind, so it's‑‑ I don't want to say today's irrelevant, but it kind of is. Q. What do you attribute a couple things, two, three things, to this great run since last summer? ZACH JOHNSON: Well, there's probably a number of factors involved. I think the work that I put in essentially this time, well, around the Florida swing of last year, of 2013 is when I started to recognize that I was off more than I cared to admit, even. Technically, fundamentally, I was off. Physically I felt great, mentally I was pretty sharp. I missed some cuts in there and I still felt good. Hit a lot of balls, more balls than I typically do. So, I think the work that I put in there and the trust that I had in my coaches then is really what's starting to pay off now. Q. Was that a swing change with Mike Bender? ZACH JOHNSON: It's not a swing change, it was more like getting back to what we were trying to do from the very beginning. I was trying to do some things that I shouldn't have tried to do. Namely try to hit it higher and further, which we're essentially talking about maybe three or four yards, you know. That's not like it's going to be that much of a difference. So I did it in an improper way and some of it I did unknowingly. Just it was just trying to tweak things and whatever. But I attribute that, I also attribute it to the fact that I think we have really cleaned up my practice even more so than what it was. I know what I'm going to do before I get to the golf course for practice, I know what drills I'm going to do, I know what drills transfer, I know how much time I want to spend on technique, how much time I want to spend on like competitive games. I just feel like it's more clean as far as the preparation work that I'm going to do at home, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday on the road, and I think the game plan that Damon and I have each week have been pretty, has been pretty good. Q. A question about your wedge play. Seems like more and more people seem to think you're the maybe the best wedge player on TOUR. ZACH JOHNSON: I would argue that the other way, but okay. Q. Okay. Well I'll give you a chance in a second. ZACH JOHNSON: Sure. Q. You won the Masters, obviously a lot was made of you winning with your wedge play there, laying up on all the par‑5s. What, have you always been a good wedge player and where do you think you rank on TOUR? ZACH JOHNSON: I think that ‑‑ I don't think I've always been a great wedge player to answer the last part of that. I've worked on it a lot. I've worked on it in a number of different ways, but the main way is really just trying to dial in yardages and trajectories. So Coach Bender and I, we have kind of got a little system that we use, I've got a wedge range at home. I've got targets from 30 to a hundred yards and in 10 yard increments and I can get different winds, different lies, and so I'm always‑‑ that's always a given as to what I'm going to do each day when I practice. I don't think I'm the best, I mean I know it's not a bad, it's one of the better aspects of my game, I think that my driving accuracy is probably one of the best aspects of my game and I would say if you hit a lot of fairways usually your GIR is way up there. I don't know, I wouldn't say my iron play is one of the best but, I would say my driving accuracy is one of the best and I would say that making putts down the stretch of tournaments is usually one of my better attributes. But my wedges are clean. I would say guys like Stricker, he's the first one that comes to my mind. Phenomenal wedge player. I would say even somebody like Phil and occasionally Tiger, but two of the best players that ever played. So, those are the three that come to my mind. And there's a handful of others that I think that are really good, but Stricker comes to my mind immediately. I mean that's pretty ridiculous. Q. Speaking of Phil and Tiger, I believe that they're the only two guys that have won more tournaments than you since you joined the TOUR in what was it, 2004? What does that mean to you? ZACH JOHNSON: Yeah, I read that somewhere too. I mean, well, I mean it means that I'm doing something right, I guess. It means I've got a great team and we have got a great vision. I think it also means that I'm really never content with where I'm at. I'm always trying to improve. But, I think that the main thing that it means is that my consistency since I've been on TOUR has been pretty good. That's always a big word in my group and something that I strive to remain and maintain and something that is always always always a huge goal, it's just to remain consistent. I mean my worst year out here really wasn't that bad. So I don't want to take that for granted, and there's room for improvement. Q. A follow‑up question on the wedge range at home. In Sea Island? ZACH JOHNSON: St. Simons yes. Q. But at your home or at the golf course? ZACH JOHNSON: At the golf course. At Frederica Golf Club, yeah. Q. And is that similar to the wedge range that Bender did at his place in Florida? ZACH JOHNSON: Very. Very. Yeah. Very. Extremely similar. Q. What about this tournament draws you into play it? ZACH JOHNSON: Well, there's a number of reasons. I like the greens here. For the West Coast I don't really putt well on poa annua and these are rye over seed for the most part. I like the format now with two amateurs, two pros, three golf courses instead of four. The weather. I don't know if I need to say, to elaborate any more than that. This is pretty ridiculous. It's perfect. I think it's great for my family too. We spent six weeks out here two years ago. So I mean the positives are huge. And the fact that Humana has come onboard now and really taken this to another level with President Clinton and his foundation, just makes it that much more special too. So they got a great platform and a great initiative they're trying to pursue and there's a number of positives as to why I'm here. MARK STEVENS: Okay well thanks for your time. ZACH JOHNSON: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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