What they said: Paul Goydos

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SONY OPEN AT HAWAII: Transcript archive

JOHN BUSH: We have Paul Goydos afterward 7 under par 63, Paul that's a phenomenal round, do you have any opening comments?

PAUL GOYDOS: Yes, I played good. I played okay yesterday and nothing good happened. Today I played good and lots of good things happened. I guess those things tend to even out.

I think making about a 20 footer on 2. And another 15 or 18 footer on 3 kind of relaxes you a little bit.

The golf course is in perfect shape. I think we are catching a little bit of break. It's was windy today, but not too bad, especially the front 9. We will see what happens this afternoon.

I think yesterday morning it was howling when I woke up at 7:15. So I think we are catching a little bit of the draw.

JOHN BUSH: Seven birdies and three twos on the card, those are always nice?

PAUL GOYDOS: Yes, twos don't add up very quick. It does make it a lot easier. I hit the ball, especially on the par 3's I hit a lot of good shots. Obviously, the golf course today is probably playing a little easier too, the scores will show that too with the pin locations and what not.

Just a good day with the putter and a good day with the irons and a good day with the driver and that generally works out pretty.

Q. It seemed like you made an awful lot of putts just looking at the ShotLink thing in that 15, 20, 25 range?

PAUL GOYDOS: I made few of them. On 2 and 3, and probably 7 it might have been in that area, I guess. Maybe a little bit longer on 3 and 7.

8, I hit it close out of the rough but got kind of lucky there, you hit it in the rough, and you are kind of playing the bounce, hitting a 9 iron from 160 yards and landing it 20 yards short of the green and it's bouncing like this, and the last bounce is pretty good and it rolls up about 4 feet.

Q. The pin in the front there?

PAUL GOYDOS: Yes, the pin is in the front there. If the pin is in the back left there, 35 feet from the hole would have been real good.

Q. Sometimes if you get a guy making two or three or four putts that length, you could say it just makes it look like a good score.

PAUL GOYDOS: If I'm going to shoot 63, and if you're shooting that number, I mean, if you're hitting it 3 feet every hole, I'm going to tip my hat and say I'm not that good.

For me to shoot 63, there is going to be three or four putts in that 15 to 20 foot range probably or a chip in, or a couple of crazy things happened.

Q. Did you chip in?

PAUL GOYDOS: I did not, but I had the up and down out of a bunker of all time of probably my career on 15. I plugged it in the front right bunker. I'm thinking 50/50 I could get it out of the bunker. So I'm kind of aiming at the flag, if for no other reason that's the widest part of the green is. It's buried, it's not going to come out with any spin. I got in there and said just hit it as hard as you can, whatever. I hit it as hard as I possibly could, and the ball came out perfect, it landed in the rough that rings the bunker, and poof, stopped it and rolled it up like that.

Those are the crazy things that happen when you shoot good scores.

Yesterday I would have plugged it and left it in the bunker and made double. Today I got it up and down.

Q. How many out of 100 do you think?

PAUL GOYDOS: Do I hit it that close?

Q. Right.

PAUL GOYDOS: One. Do I get it up and down, 5, because I might make a 30 footer every once in a while. I would have taken 30 feet and not hit the shot. It actually kept it below the hole. And then I made a pretty good lengthy one, probably 25 feet

Q. The grooves?

PAUL GOYDOS: Yes, grooves. On 11 for birdie. And then hit it close on 17.

Q. Paul, what did you think when you heard earlier in the week that the Ping I 2 wedges from 90 ...

PAUL GOYDOS: I didn't hear it until this morning. Who knows? That's got to be some lawyer doing his job somewhere back in the 90's. I played with Dean Wilson. There was an article, I guess

Q. He was in your group?

PAUL GOYDOS: Dean and John Daly. I guess the club had to have been made, physically made prior to 1990. Not just that style club, but actually physically whatever. I played Ping wedges a little bit, I never could play with them anyway.

This golf course, I don't think it means a whole lot personally. This Bermuda grass, the squarest grooves in the world are going to have a tough time spinning it. We'll see down the road. I don't know that that's something I would do. But that's what the rule is. I think it's funny. That's what happens, not to disparage lawyers too much, but that's what happens when you have more than one lawyer in a room.

Q. I know you are use to annihilating golf courses all over the country, but what is it particularly about Waialae?

PAUL GOYDOS: I like Bermuda grass, it starts with that. Bermuda grass tends to grow in places where it's hot. I tend to like playing in the hot weather too. Maybe that's an age thing.

I think this golf course fits my eye pretty well. I like the crosswinds. Like today, it's almost a pure trade wind, which I really like, and it showed.

Quite frankly, I won here in '07. I missed the cut in '08 and '09. So it's either hit and miss here a little bit for me. I probably missed the cut here five or six times, too.

I do like the Bermuda grass. I think the golf course is one of our top five golf courses that we play all year. It's enjoyable. It's hard in spots, but it not hard because it's 520 yard par 4's.

It's hard because you've got some tricky winds, and some tough fairways to hit. You got doglegs, a dogleg into the wind, which is always difficult like No. 2. It's a good test of your game.

Q. Is that why you come all the time, mostly because of the course?

PAUL GOYDOS: Golf course.

Q. Any family stuff?

PAUL GOYDOS: Obviously coming to Hawaii. I mean, I couldn't imagine you're starting your first event out your first event is in Hawaii. I could imagine if I live in Florida, it's a tough trip. Living in California and get a chance to go to Hawaii, absolutely, the golf course has really grown on me.

Q. What's the best part of your game working now?

PAUL GOYDOS: Today I drove it good. And obviously with the grooves, too, hitting the ball in the fairway helps tremendously. I drove it real good. Everything was good. And I putted good.

If those two things happen, I'm good go to shoot good scores. Having said that will make it a different answer tomorrow.

If you asked me yesterday, I started out a little squirrely, but really I missed 3 of my first 4 fairways yesterday. And I think I only missed one the rest of the day, and I only missed one or two today. So I've driven the ball real well. It kind of gets you to a start on this golf course to where, with a good lie in the fairway, the crosswinds become more manageable. While they're up, you're kind of guessing the spin and the bounce and all of the other crazy things that go on.

Q. Have you had any groove issues, anything that you know was different from this year and last year?

PAUL GOYDOS: Not yet. I don't think you are going to catch it here. The fliers that I've hit here, you're going to hit with square grooves pretty much. Bermuda grass is a little more of an interesting beast.

I would say that if anything on a golf course like this, you know it's going to fly. So you can play for it. I would say this golf course, in the rough it would be 4 if I caught a lie that was a little iffy with a square groove, it might fly or not fly. I don't have to worry about that here. That will be a bigger issue when we get into more bent grass and those types fairways.

If the rough is this high, it's not going to matter. If the rough is the height like it is here, I have 160 yard 9 iron on 8. Dean Wilson was right next to me. So he probably had 162 yards, and he hit 9 iron, and he hit it over the green. So he hit 180 yard 9 iron. But you kind of know what's going to happen now more than anything else. As I say, in this type of grass, it takes some of the guess out of it.

Q. I was kind of going off the top of my head, it's a rare exception where a tournament more like this is more bunched than most, consistently bunched, there was that Chad Campbell and David Toms here when they kind of separated themselves, I'm sure there has been a couple of others, it seems like ever year you get ...

PAUL GOYDOS: You do early. It tends to spread out though. You do early. You can talk to the rules officials about it a little bit here, like you saw yesterday, they have a little bit of a pace of play problem. It's a tough golf course to get 144 guys around Thursday and Friday.

So the golf course generally is set up harder on the weekend. So the first two days you do get a little bunching, but then the golf course gets a little more difficult, it does tend to separate.

Even when I won we had 11 I was 11 under after two rounds and 14 under one. That's very typical of playing here if the weather stays the same, because they can do more things with the golf course on the weekend because pace of play becomes a little bit less of an issue. That's the way it was explained to me.

I always thought that this s the one tournament that actually had Sunday pin placements quote, unquote. The hardest pins always seem to be on Sunday. A big part of that is, they use those pins Thursday and Friday, they have a tough time finishing.

JOHN BUSH: Go through the card. You took care of a couple holes. Birdie on No. 2

PAUL GOYDOS: I hit a 3 wood and 6 iron to about 20 feet. Again, the pin being on the left side of the green versus the right side of the green is a totally different hole. To me it's plays a quarter to a shot or half shot easier and made a 20 footer.

3, we hit a 3 wood and pitching wedge on the right fringe which wasn't too bad because I was only about 15 feet from the hole.

7, hit a 5 iron to about 20 feet left. It's one those funky pins, if you miss it right, there is a swale there and tried to hit it left. I don't want to miss it right and putt over the hill there.

Dean Wilson had about a 40 footer, maybe a 35 footer on the exact same line and made it. When you see another putt go right near your coin and go right in the center, I kind of know where to aim it now. I had a pretty good idea. And I made it right on top of him. Actually Webb Simpson made birdie there too. We had three twos on that hole.

8, I hit in the rough and bounced it up there about four feet, very lucky there

9, drove it good, hit it in the left bunker which was a mistake. I had a pretty tough bunker shot and got it out to about 12 feet and made that for birdie.

All of the great birdies, you don't birdie 9, you feel like you kind of left it out there a little bit, but able to make the one on 9.

I hit a 4 iron to about 30 feet on 11 and made that.

6 iron to about 6 feet on 17 and made that.

And actually made a mess of 18 after hitting a good tee shot and lucky to make it. I made about a six footer for par.

Q. On 18?

PAUL GOYDOS: I hit 3 iron over the green, and then I kind of had one of those Bermuda lies and didn't hit a good chip, left it 20 feet short and then I putted it four or five feet below the hole and made that. I made one 12 like that too where I knocked it five feet and made it coming back. The greens are perfect. You can't ask for a better condition golf course than we got right now.

Q. That would have been a bitter end to your round if you would have missed that one?

PAUL GOYDOS: It's a bitter end, if you miss a five footer, you miss a five footer. It's getting caught up in what it's for is probably not a good idea. We hit a good put, and we made our 5, and we moved on.

Q. What are you going to do the rest of the day?

PAUL GOYDOS: I'm going to eat lunch, make a few phone calls. I'm going to go down to the Sony deal at the bottom of the hotel and take a look and see what the new stuff is. I guess the 3D television is just crazy good. I'm going to check that out, kill some time. I'll probably chip and putt, maybe hit a few balls, depending on how windy it gets. I don't know, go to the mall.

Q. Do you think there is a lot of 7 unders out there, or 8 in the afternoon?

PAUL GOYDOS: Well, there is one this morning. Justin Rose was playing right in front of me, he was playing good. I think trade winds are back today. Yesterday is more of a north wind. Today is a true trade. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody shot a great score. The golf course is definitely set up a little easier. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone, the stroke average was a shot lower today than yesterday, if not more.

Q. Did you come over here for your media day after you won?

PAUL GOYDOS: They didn't ask me.

Q. Would you of?

PAUL GOYDOS: They didn't ask me. I think they had Tadd do it probably, deservedly so. I would have, whatever I can, yes. You need to promote your event. It's nice for Sony to give us the money for the purse and three or four million to charity. But you do need to give back. If Sony asked me to come out here, and it worked, sure, I would come out here for sure.