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WASTE MANAGEMENT PHOENIX OPENFebruary 2, 2014Graham DeLaetSCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA Q. Wonderful round today. I know you started off with a little bit of an injury issue. Evidently it didn't bother you too much. GRAHAM DeLAET: Yeah, luckily I have a great trainer, Craig Davies, from Toronto. We did a little extra work this morning. My routine before the round was a little bit different, but I took some Advil that kicked in a little bit, and I was feeling pretty good for most of the day. Q. Did you have a target score in mind for today? GRAHAM DeLAET: Not really. I knew I'd just have to make a lot of birdies. After my tee shot on 15 I thought my chances were probably gone. Hopefully that's not the case. But, you know, I played well and I worked hard in the offseason, and it's just really rewarding to see that paying off. Q. Last year was the year of the beard with the Red Sox. I know you shaved yours off after the playoffs last year. You got it back. Maybe this is the next year of the beard? GRAHAM DeLAET: I hope so, man. I hope today is the day. Q. It was sort of a quiet start out of you, and then it just all got a bit crazy over the back nine. GRAHAM DeLAET: Yeah, it was nice. I got a couple of putts to kind of go in there. On 12 I made a nice one. I made a great up and down on 13 out of the bunker after hitting a poor shot there. The juices kind of got going. I thought I had a chance. And unfortunately that tee shot on 15, I was really trying to hit one down there. I should have just kind of hit a cut to hold the wind, but in hindsight it's easy to say, but it was a great way to finish and hopefully it's enough. Q. You had such a fantastic Presidents Cup experience. Talk to the experience you may have gotten from playing under that pressure. GRAHAM DeLAET: Yeah, that's the most intense pressure I ever dreamt about. It was unbelievable, and I was able to hit some great shots that week under that pressure. That's the kind of stuff you draw on. When I was coming down 17 and 18, you know, I was kind of thinking back, like I know that I can do it under the pressure. It was definitely a big step in my career being able to play on that team, and hopefully can kind of keep going and hopefully it's enough today. Q. The energy over those final few holes, what did it feel like? GRAHAM DeLAET: It was fun. Obviously there are tons of people there. There are so many Canadians out here following me. Almost felt like a Canadian Open today. Thanks to all of them for being out there. Now just kind of probably go inside, watch a couple of holes and see what happens. Q. Strong finish there at the end. GRAHAM DeLAET: Yeah, thanks. I knew that I needed probably to birdie the last two. That back pin on 17 is really, really tough, and I hit what I thought was a pretty good shot there, but I still had 12, 15 feet. To birdie the last, I knew that I had ‑‑I was trying to hole it, but, you know, birdie is second best. Q. Were you expecting this? Now it's a big group of everybody there right now in the mix. GRAHAM DeLAET: I didn't really know until I birdied 13 and felt at that time I had a good chance to win if I could make some birdies coming down the stretch. I let one get away on 15, but it was nice to finish the way I did. Q. You had an injury issue earlier in the day? GRAHAM DeLAET: Yeah, I kind of tweaked my back my first shot on the range this morning. My trainer is here and we did some good work. We kind of changed my warmup routine a bit, and I was ready to go on that first tee. I was a little bit stiff for the first maybe four, five holes, but I loosened up pretty good. Q. So the hockey mindset helping out there? GRAHAM DeLAET: Yeah, you got to play through it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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