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WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPENJanuary 29, 2014Scott StallingsSCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Scott Stallings into the interview room here at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. He's making his third start at this event and is coming off of his win last week at the Farmers Insurance Open. First of all, take us back to Sunday, what was obviously a great finish for you. SCOTT STALLINGS: Yeah, well, you know, any time you have an opportunity to win on a PGA TOUR is a great week and kind of, you know, coming down the stretch and having an opportunity to execute down the stretch, coming out on top is a big achievement any time. That venue and that event was very special and a huge stepping stone in my career. THE MODERATOR: Talk a little bit about the aftermath of that, though. A couple of interesting days for you. SCOTT STALLINGS: Yeah. It's been interesting, to say the least. I did the interviews, did all the stuff, and we had to get on the road. I was scheduled to play in the Monday pro‑am. Kind of made my home here in Scottsdale this winter, trying to help out the tournament as much as I could. We were driving back, and about an hour into the road trip my son started getting sick, which made for an adventurous six‑hour drive back to Scottsdale. And upon arriving in Scottsdale about midnight, my wife started getting sick. I stayed up with her all evening. I was giving her a hard time. I said, I guess I'm putting in for husband and father of the year (laughter). So she was sick, and then I kind of got the tail end of it Monday afternoon and Monday evening and then kind of didn't honestly‑‑ if you asked me yesterday, I'd say there is no way I'm playing in the tournament. The Mayo Clinic and the tournament got me hooked up with some good doctors and nurses, all kind of IVs and fluid and stuff like that. I'm a completely different person than I was yesterday. So it's been an eventful but uneventful celebration, I guess. THE MODERATOR: Before we open it up to questions, lastly, making your third start at this tournament but you haven't made a cut here. Just talk a little bit about this golf course, how it suits your game and your focus for the week. SCOTT STALLINGS: It's a golf course you need to have some experience on, just the fact you kind of have to know how to deal with it. I have played and practiced here a lot this winter, so it will be a little bit different experience. I was injured one year when I played, and another year was just my first time ‑‑ or last year my son was in the process of being born. So I don't really think necessarily those count. When you're playing with your cell phone in your pocket, waiting on your wife to call when your son is being born is not the best way to play. I'm looking forward to the week, excited to have somewhat of a home game, excited to go out there and play. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. How do you go from where you were at the end of last year, your emotions this is year, all of a sudden the lights come on and you win? SCOTT STALLINGS: We made some pretty dramatic changes in a short amount of time. We went from a golf swing that involved hanging back and flipping and a matter of a lot of timing, and when it was good it was awesome, but when it was bad it was awful. You know, especially under the gun, I mean, it caused ‑‑ I mean, it was just kind of hard to predict what was going to happen. Then you get an opportunity to kind of see it when it manifests itself. After Chicago, my coach and my trainer, we sat down and I was kind of sick of it. I said, I will do whatever it takes not to play like this anymore. I'm not saying we got it all figured out, but we are definitely headed in the right direction. We have a swing and some moves now that my body can actually reproduce. I got hurt two years ago. I'm just now back to where I was before I got hurt. So I played the whole fall, and knowing that I need to play tournaments the most, you know, and the transition so I can, you know, try to see how it would hold up. Obviously I didn't necessarily think it would happen this fast, but I knew that I was working the right way and going about it the right way that when I got the opportunity I would be prepared for it. Q. So during the course of that final round, the whole week, what were you hanging on to? Was there any difficulty staying in what you were doing with the new swing? SCOTT STALLINGS: No. It kind of had become somewhat second nature, a little bit. You know, I get in trouble when I stop rotating my back swing and causes me to pick the club up and swing it long. I have to kind of drop it up underneath and kind of fall back so I don't chunk it, pretty much. So John, throughout the whole tournament, just started saying, Keep rotating, keep rotating. Coming down the stretch on 18, he said, You can't rotate too much. The same thing my little buddy that's been helping with my putting, David Robinson, he said, You can't release the putter too much. That's all I thought about. And I had one of the best putting weeks of my career. So that's really all I thought about when I was putting, just making sure the toe released and that's it. Q. Where have you been working here? Where are you based here? SCOTT STALLINGS: My wife and I are renting in Scottsdale in Grayhawk, and so we are five minutes away from here. So I have been playing and practicing out of here, actually also at Whisper Rock, went through the whole process, and we are going to make somewhat of a winter home out here. Especially with the vile weather that's been in the South, I don't miss that at all. We miss our families, but I don't miss that weather at all. We look forward to being out here, spending some time, and the people at Whisper Rock and the TPC are unbelievable. It's an atmosphere in order to where, if you're doing what I do for a living, you can only get better out here. Q. What's the biggest thing you took out of last week? SCOTT STALLINGS: There was no celebration.   That's for sure (laughter). Just the changes that I made, the steps I made, what I felt like to get better, coming to Scottsdale, you know, I basically hired my trainer/therapist guy, basically begged him and his wife to figure out whatever possible way I could to get him to come on the road. We knew it would eventually trend towards playing well, but I didn't necessarily think it would kind of come together that quickly. But, you know, kind of relying upon, you know, the team I had around me instead of trying to do it all on my own is something‑‑ we, as golfers, we are the guys hitting the shots, but every one of us has a team behind us that, you know, help us get to where we are and kind of being able to do better as far as relying on them and having them do their job instead of trying to micromanage it has been a big part of it. Q. In terms of that feel of the course, having success and that sort of thing, did that help you confidence‑wise, hitting‑wise? SCOTT STALLINGS: It has a huge amount to do with confidence. I mean, it's not a major. I will never say it was a major. But it's as close to one as I have played in a tournament that's not. The rough was every bit as penal as the U.S. Open. The greens were, you know, not as treacherous. I mean, they were firm and stuff like that, but if you had an opportunity to play in that field and that venue and come out on top is something that's made a huge difference on my career. But you went about it like you do a major. You don't really care about the leaderboard. You just try to make doubles. Q. The changes you made (indiscernible). SCOTT STALLINGS: A little bit. I had equipment that was built based on like my ability to time it. Like I had a shaft, my driver, just had a little lag on it, real soft at the tip, so every time you catch up or, you know, kind of do whatever it needed to do to deal with how I manipulated it. Now, everything is kind of more straight in, making me more on top of the ball. I mean, my ability to be able to flight the ball up in the air is done correctly rather than being able to hang back and hoist it. I was able to hit all these really cool shots, but it was all manipulated. There wasn't like a right/wrong way to do it. It was just kind of based on when I got lucky, I guess. It's changed it a little bit, but it's made it a lot more consistent, too. Q. The agronomist fact sheet on the South Course said the second cut was three‑and‑a‑half inches. SCOTT STALLINGS: That is false. Some areas were considerably more than that. Some areas it wasn't bad.  Just based on wherever you hit it. We had some lies that, you know, you could have hit a 4‑iron out of, and then you had some lies you didn't know if you were going to get a lob wedge out. The perfect example of how the golf course played, we were playing the South on Thursday, and I drove it barely off the fairway on the right and I had like 230 to the hole, and I didn't think there was any way I was going to get anywhere close. I hit a 4‑iron about two yards short and right of the green. I got to my ball, and I was two yards off the green and I barely got it to the green. That's just kind of the luck of the lie you get and just kind of how penal, and it's total luck. You didn't know what you were going to get. Three‑and‑a‑half inches is very false (laughter). THE MODERATOR: Scott Stallings. Thank you, sir. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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