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ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 24, 2014Erik ComptonAVONDALE, LOUISIANA THE MODERATOR: Welcome Erik Compton to the media center. 6‑under today is obviously a great start and nice way to finish with the 20‑footer or so for birdie at the last. Maybe you can tell us what it's like to get off to a good start and finish with birdie there, and we'll open it up for a few questions. ERIK COMPTON: Yeah, I drove the ball well today. I hit the ball pretty well with my irons. The last putt on the last hole was a nice way to kind of finish a great day of a lot of close iron shots. Like David said earlier, when you hit it well, you have a lot of looks at it, and you always want to shoot a little better, but I played really well on the front, which was our 10 to 18. I felt like I hit it really well through the rest of the day but just didn't get anything to fall, so the last putt on the last hole makes it nice. Q. Just following up on that last hole there, are you thinking 20‑footer, this will be a nice way to cap it off or was it just another golf shot for the day? ERIK COMPTON: It's just another shot. I mean, like I said, when you give yourself that many looks, you're hoping to have a day like an 8‑ or 9‑under. To be honest, playing with David today was a lot of fun because you could see that he was really jazzed about playing in a group where we were playing well. And for a guy that was No. 1 in the world, and for me to play‑‑ I've never played a round with him, but for him to watch me play and be encouraging, and not only for me to be encouraging with his game, but I was more impressed with how he was and how he handled his game from the standpoint that he's been struggling a lot over the course of some time here. It was neat for me to be able to play well in front of him, and I think it was really neat for him to be playing well because he really played well today. Q. I'm curious about 7, 8, and 9. What club did you hit off the tee on 9? ERIK COMPTON: I hit a 6‑iron. Q. And at 8, I saw you were pretty frustrated after that putt. It seemed like 9 was kind of a fitting response. ERIK COMPTON: Yeah, it was one of those days where I hit extremely close. I hit it, and it goes back to earlier in the round, I hit it really close on 17 and lipped out, then I birdied 8. Then making the turn, I didn't birdie No. 2, which I had 250 to the front, and I tried to really hammer a 3‑wood up there and made par. Then I stuffed it on 3, which was a tough hole today. That's a hole you're trying to make par and get out, and I think I had about 10 feet for birdie there and lipped that one out. Then going through the round, I think I hit birdie on the par‑5, No. 7, and hit it pretty close on 8 and missed it. You can't argue. Guys are going to shoot low out there. You know, when you're 8, you want to be 9, when you're 9, you want to be 10. So that's just kind of how we are greedy. But when you hit a putt on the last hole, it makes dinner taste a little better because you go from 5 to 6 and finally make a putt that maybe you didn't deserve, so it kind of cancels out some of those that you missed. Q. Where is dinner? ERIK COMPTON: That's a good question. There are a lot of great places to eat around here. I have a late tee time tomorrow. I'll just try to stay off Bourbon Street. Q. Just wondering. You played in this tournament before. Hole No. 2, a little different now. Just talk about that hole, and your performance there and any different experience on 2? ERIK COMPTON: Yeah, I only played 9 holes in the practice round. I was pretty busy this week, so I didn't actually see No. 2 until I got up on to the green, and it was like, wow, this hole looks completely different. It looks like they've moved the green over to the right a little more, and there is some room for some error on the left side of the green. You know, once that green matures, it's definitely slower than the other ones, but I like the shape and they had a great hole location in the back left today. But, you know, that's another great change that you see in a golf hole. Sometimes they're not great changes, but I thought it was really nice. Q. You said you've been busy. I assume with activities related to this month. Does it ever get in the way of your golf a little bit, having to do some of these things? I assume everywhere you go someone wants you to talk to someone or visit with someone, or are you like this is part of your life that you want it to be? ERIK COMPTON: Yeah, it's never a burden on me because I feel like the weeks where I visit the hospital on Monday and we spend a lot of time with patients, I seem to play better during the weeks where I have hospital visits and maybe some more obligations off the golf course. But it's all about managing my time. I've been out here now so I know the golf courses. If you're playing well, then you don't need to overpractice. I'm a lot more confident with my game, so I understand what I can and can't do. It takes a few years to figure out what golf courses you like and what golf courses you don't like. So this is a course that I feel very comfortable on, and you have to hit a lot of long shots and drive it well here, and those are some of the strengths of my game. This year I putted a little better than I have in the past, so when you hit the ball on weeks well, you play great rounds. I've made a lot of cuts in a row based upon the fact that I've been able to save some cuts missed because I've been able to make some key up‑and‑downs and make a few extra putts. It's exciting. The years when you're putting well, you look forward to playing golf, and the weeks when you play well, you have a chance to win. Q. You said you feel like you played better when you go make visits. Does it relax you or put you at peace or it helps you? Did you do any this Monday? ERIK COMPTON: Yeah, there is definitely a catch 22 to it because a lot of the patients need to be heard. Now that I've been transplanted for over 21 years, and people who are just transplanted and parents who have their kids who have just been transplanted want to relate to somebody who has a future. For me to be able to assure them that they'll have a normal life, and sometimes it doesn't work out that way, but it's encouraging for them, and I also feel comfortable doing it. When I was a patient, I didn't have many people that were professional athletes coming in and telling me it's going to be okay, so it needs to be told. You know, I've been doing it for a long time, so I'm very comfortable talking even when we do visits with donor families. It can be very hard when you talk to a family who has lost a loved one and they've donated their son or their daughter's organ. But I've done so many educational programs with donor families over the course of my life that I know how to handle it. So when I get on the golf course, I think about golf and focus on golf. When I'm off the golf course or on weeks like that, it's taken me a few years to figure out how to handle that as well. Q. Sort of along those lines, now that you've been out here for a couple years and you're on a stretch of pretty good golf, do those questions get more frequent or less frequent, I guess? Have people kind of picked up on it and focused more on the golf or is it the same thing each week? ERIK COMPTON: Well, that first question I got off the golf course was not a question about golf today, so that's usual. It will always be like that. I think it will change once I win a tournament and people will focus more on that, but I haven't proven myself as being a top player out here. So it can be a few years to get comfortable, and hopefully that will be a pattern. Hopefully when that pattern does happen, I'm healthy. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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