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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE INSURANCEMay 27, 2014Bubba WatsonDUBLIN, OHIO THE MODERATOR: Bubba Watson, thanks for joining us for a few minutes here at the Memorial Tournament, making your ninth start in the event this week, and obviously off to a wonderful year, two wins, two runner‑ups, just some opening comments on being back here at Muirfield. BUBBA WATSON: I love this place. Coming back here, it's one of the places that you always see a great field, good golf course. For me, I love the look of it. I don't think I've ever played very well here, but I love coming back and challenging myself. I don't think I've ever had a real high finish, but I look forward to the challenge. But hopefully now that I'm playing a little bit better, making my way a little bit better, hopefully it will show Sunday afternoon. Hopefully I'm at Sunday afternoon. Q. Bubba, you said you love the place, you've never really played well here. A left‑hander hasn't won here in 38 years. Is there anything about the place that doesn't cater to left‑handers? BUBBA WATSON: Yeah, there's more righties on tour than lefties. Tiger Woods happens to be a righty. He won most of them I think in that time period. No, I think it's just one of those things. Righties are just winning. It's just like Augusta, remember there wasn't very many lefties winning Augusta, and then now there's a few more lefties. Golf just goes in cycles. Maybe when one guy wins or‑‑ then maybe it will just happen that way. It's always up in the air. But obviously with more righties in the field, it makes it a little bit easier for righties. Q. You have shots out there that fit your eye‑‑ BUBBA WATSON: Yeah, no matter what the golf course is, you're going to have shots that fit better for me than other guys. But I cut the ball off the tee. Righties that draw the ball off the tee. Kenny Perry, he did pretty well here, I think, drawing the ball as a righty. That's basically my shot shape. Q. Are there any comparisons you can make between this course and the major championship course in that you can ‑‑ things that you're working on here during the round can also help you at the Open? BUBBA WATSON: Obviously can. You get better at your chipping, you're going to be better at the Open. But, truthfully, none of us here are thinking about the Open. We're all thinking about trying to win here. We'd like to all shake the hands of Jack Nicklaus Sunday afternoon. So I don't think‑‑ none of us are trying to practice for that. We're always trying to practice. We're always trying to get better at the game of golf. If that means Memphis or that means the Open, we're just trying to get better. Q. Kind of along the lines of the first question, why is it so hard to handicap winners in golf? I know there's a lot of good players, but what makes this sport so unique in picking who can win and who won't? BUBBA WATSON: I don't know if you can ever pick at any sport who can win, who can't win. If you could do that, you'd be in Vegas; you wouldn't be here talking to me. But I think that this sport, there's a lot of variables that go into it. All it takes is ‑‑ we've all slept funny in our bed where our shoulder hurts the next day or elbow hurts or something hurts. The game of golf is four days. It's not just you make ‑‑ you get ten shots in a row and you win a basketball game or the other team struggles just like you in baseball or football. In golf, there's so many good players. Anybody can win. In this field, this week, anybody has a chance to win. All it takes is four good rounds of golf. In golf, it's always up in the air. Obviously the better the players that are ranked higher have a better shot at it. You're always going to put them first. But you never know. Anybody has a chance to win at any given time, because the fields are so deep. When you look at our fields, the fields are so deep in golf that anybody has a shot at winning. Q. Last year you said the allergies really bothered you here. Was that a consideration in deciding whether to come, and anything you can do other than just taking allergy medicine to deal with that? BUBBA WATSON: If there was another way to help it, I would like to hear that. But I take medicine every day of my life. Some days are worse than others. Couple of years ago I had vertigo here, and so I went to a head doctor‑‑ I guess I needed a mental doctor, too, but I went to a head doctor and he checked me out and everything. So it's one of those things. I just have to deal with it certain times of year. And I take a nose spray and I take a pill and I have eyedrops as well. So I take those three. And some days are better than others. Some weeks are better than others. But for the most part it's good. I've had the surgery as well, nose surgery, to straighten my nose and tried to help it as many ways as I can. But it's been good the last few years here. So it's just bagged off the last few years. I don't have anything to blame it on. Q. Bubba, nearly everybody who talks about this course on tour loves it. But it's also one of the most difficult courses on tour. I think outside of the majors it was the toughest par 72 the last couple years, so it's very challenging, especially at the end 16, 17, 18, very difficult holes. Why do you as players embrace that difficulty, embrace that challenge? Because obviously scores show that it's a tough place to play. BUBBA WATSON: As a golfer, you love the challenge. You love competing. But at the same time, you‑‑ the better players, I guess you'd say, the top 50 in the world are always‑‑ their mental games are a little bit better. They're trying to be a little bit better. So it has‑‑ like he was saying about the major feel, it's because of the fact that it's so difficult. It's aniron ‑‑ an approach‑shot golf course, I guess you'd say. The fairways are generous. Even I hit a lot of fairways here. So it's all about your iron shots. It's all about controlling your distance. It's all about your mental game, because the par 3s, these have to be the most difficult par 3s on any course, all four of these put together. So it's all about your approach shots into the greens and approach shots on the par 3s. So the last finishing stretch is you're going to have a difficult shot over the water on 16, which is one of the toughest holes I've ever seen in my life, and 17 you're going to have tough iron shot. And 18 now, the length, make it even tougher with that green. And so it's all about your mental focus and what you can do. That's what we all want. We always feel like if you focus better than the other guys and you think your ability is good enough, you're going to be there in the end. We want it as tough as possible ‑‑ or I want it tough as possible so that it weeds out some of the guys that aren't thinking positive. Q. Have to ask you about your putt‑putt shot that you posted last week. A, is it legit? And, B, how important is it that social media aspect of connecting with the fans? Because I think that thing went viral rather quickly, your shot there. BUBBA WATSON: Obviously it's legit. You saw it go in. It was funny, though, because the video, once we did the video and I made it, I walked over, grabbed a flag, and it looked like I just popped up. So it looked funny that way. But it was me and some guys ‑‑ not that they're listening, but if those guys were listening, they're the cart boys ‑‑ I call them the cart boys ‑‑ at Isleworth. I went out with the four guys from Isleworth, and they lost a bet, so they had to buy me Chipotle. So we had Chipotle and then we went to‑‑ one guy had free passes to Fantasia Golf there in Disney World, so we went over and played. And I beat them out of a water there, too. I dominated them all day. So we went over there. So I was like, hey, we could play this hole backwards. So there's a couple of holes we did that. But that was the video that it actually went in. So, yeah, it was a legit video. But it's fun. Social media, though, is what ‑‑ with our game, it's very hard to I guess sell a product or interact with fans, and so for us it's a way to show a different side of us. A lot of people saw me as being mean. A lot of people saw me as being angry. A lot of people see me as getting upset on the golf course. But I put my head down, so I don't listen to people. I'm just trying to stay focused on what I'm doing. In between holes I put my head down. It's not that I'm mad. I don't care if I just three‑putted, I don't care if I just made a hole in one; I put my head down just so I can stay focused on the next hole, the next shot. So the social media aspect of it shows who I am as a person off the course. I'm just a kid. I'm just goofing around, having fun. So, yes, obviously doing videos like that, they go viral, that people enjoy. Obviously that just shows who I am as a person. I just like to have fun and goof around and take money from cart boys. (Laughter). Q. You mentioned 18. They built that new tee for the Presidents Cup, and this will be the first time it's in play in the Memorial. Is that going to affect the way you play that hole at all? Or do you think it's going to affect much of the field, the way that they attack that hole now? BUBBA WATSON: Well, it will definitely affect. That tree now‑‑ I think we lasered it this morning, about 300 yards from the tee box that we were at, that tree right there. And so when you look at that, the way the green is and the way the green's shaped, a longer iron for some of the hitters, for half the field, and sometimes me, makes that green very difficult, because they didn't change the green, they just changed the length. And sometimes when you‑‑ sometimes when you change a golf course and just add length and you don't mess with the green, makes it even more difficult. But the green is sloped back to front, so it stops the long irons, it will stop long irons a little bit faster. But it's all about placement around that green. Even sometimes you might miss the green, just have an easier chip than a putt. But, yeah, it will definitely change it. A lot more drivers off that tee just because that tree is 300 now, and you're looking at 6, 5‑irons, 4‑irons in there to some guys. Today it was a little downwind, so I hit 4‑wood off the tee, about even with that tree, and then I hit 9‑iron into the green. But, again, it was downwind for me and I'm a little longer than some of them. Q. I see you're on the list for the Pro‑Am tomorrow morning. Is that more about entertaining clients? Is that about practice? Is it just one more chance to see the course? How do you mentally prepare for that? BUBBA WATSON: Just depends on what your situation is. This week I was up visiting family up in Canada, so I didn't really practice as much as I wanted to. So we planned on that. We got in yesterday. I played a late nine holes yesterday, early nine holes this morning. Then tomorrow will be just another chance to see the course, see it in different conditions. Hopefully it dries up a little bit. Hopefully the rain stays away. It was a little soggy, a little soft landing in the fairways. Greens were a little bit softer than normal. So tomorrow will be just another test to see it. That's usually what we use it for. If I've been practicing at home pretty well, I'll usually come in Tuesday here and get ready for the Pro‑Am, see the course on Pro‑Am. Since I hadn't practiced, I came in a little early to get some good practice in. But it's entertaining, but at the same time you are doing your business; you are taking care of business and looking at the course, trying to just get used to the course one extra day. Guys that don't get to play in the Pro‑Am, they sit on the range. For us it's an extra day of seeing the course. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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