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DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 31, 2007Mike WeirNORTON, MASSACHUSETTS STEWART MOORE: Mike Weir, thanks for spend a few moments with us here at the Deutsche Bank Championship after a fantastic opening round 65. Great par save at the last. If you could talk just a little bit about your round today. MIKE WEIR: Yeah, I think -- you know, the biggest thing was I think getting out there first. That was actually a bonus, I thought. The greens were so good and they're so fast that I just had a real nice feel on the greens, and that was the biggest difference. I just made some nice putts. That was probably one of the best putting rounds I've had this year. Got off to holing a bunker shot on the first hole, that kind of gets your good frame of mind. From there out I played pretty good. I didn't play perfect golf. I mis-hit some shots but was able to recover a few times, and that's what I haven't been doing is getting the balls up-and-down from just off the edge and kind of keeping the round going. I was able to do that for the most part today. Q. Before we get into the round, I'm just curious, it's got to be, what, since '99 that you went off first? MIKE WEIR: I can't remember the last time, but it was probably, yeah, in '99 (laughing) since I've gone off first. Yeah, that's true. The 4:15 wake-up call was a little less desirable. Q. Were you able to find the ball in the hazard on 18? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, it was there. It just hit the rock -- it was right underneath the bush there. I hit a nice shot. It was a perfect number, a little bit into the wind, 229 yards, and I hit a rescue, and it just gusted up a little bit. It was kind of gusting, that's why I was waiting out there, and I hit a very nice shot. I was obviously disappointed I ended up short, but I made a nice save, though. Q. Is it fair to say you're perking up a little bit after -- I guess you nursed the neck injury where the fan got you a couple years ago and kind of set you sideways during the PGA? MIKE WEIR: Well, at Firestone. That's the issues I had last year that were bothering me a little bit. And then I've been fine until I hit that shot at Firestone and it just went into muscle spasm and it's been bothering me a little bit. It's still there a little bit, it's just kind of ice and work on it; the guys work on it every day and just kind of get it -- it's getting better. It's definitely getting better. Q. That all traces back to that one overzealous fan wanting to get a piece of Mike Weir? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, during the Canadian Open of 2004 on the 10th hole walking down the hill, yes. Q. You've been playing better. Is it nice to see a score next to how you feel you've been playing? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, it does. You know, I felt like Westchester last week I was playing well and wasn't getting much out of it. I had a nice round Sunday; I shot 4-under, and that was with the longest putt I made maybe seven, eight feet. I felt like I didn't really get a real good score in there. Today was nice to get a lot out of my round. A lot of the rounds I've played this year, I look back and I think, aw, I should have been three or four better. Today I can't look at really anything that I could have done much better. Q. Gary picking you, does that free you up to play better, put more pressure on you to play better, factor into how you play at all? MIKE WEIR: Absolutely. I think it does bring me up a little bit. I think more than anything, it was on the back of my mind, can't deny that. It was there for the last few months, thinking about it a lot because I obviously wanted to make that team badly. I think not thinking about that anymore frees me up a little bit more, but at the same time I definitely want to be playing well going in there, and I feel like I am. I'd just like to play well enough to be playing next week so I can -- I would rather not have two weeks off before. It was a good start, and I think it was important to show some good signs. Q. Just as a follow-up to that, perfect timing you're finding form the second event of the Playoffs and with the Presidents Cup coming up? MIKE WEIR: Yes. I still feel like I can make some hay in the FedExCup here and get on a nice roll. My game is feeling good, and you never know when you're going to get on a good string and maybe win a couple in a row and get right back in this thing. You never know when that's going to happen. You've just got to be patient. Like I said, it's just round one, but it's definitely a good start. Q. Have you given any consideration to what you might do if things don't go well this week and you don't get into Chicago? That would actually be three weeks off before The Presidents Cup. Do you take three weeks off or go tee it up at a Canadian Tour, Nationwide -- MIKE WEIR: I don't know, I haven't thought about it too much. There's a possibility I might do that. There's a Nationwide event in Utah next week (laughing) five minutes from my house. I don't know, yeah. I wouldn't like to take three weeks off, but a Canadian Tour event is another possibility. So yeah, I hadn't really thought much about that, Doug. Three weeks is a long time. Q. What do you have to finish to earn your way to Chicago? MIKE WEIR: You know, I don't know exactly. I was kind of looking at the points. I think probably anywhere in the top -- it's tough to make a lot of headway. I think top eight, top seven, I was looking, might probably get me in. But again, I don't want to think about that too much. I want to -- as I said going in here, I want to try to get myself in contention to win this thing. It's been a long time since I've won, and I want to win more than anything. Top finishes are nice, but we want to win out here. Q. The mindset would be basically the same as any other week? MIKE WEIR: Oh, yeah. Q. Obviously it's not unprecedented for someone 20th in the standings to be picked for the team, but you seem to be fairly popular with the rest of the boys on the International Team. Have you had much interaction with them since Gary's pick? Has anyone said anything to you? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, most of the guys have come by and said congrats. There's a few new guys on the team, but most of the guys, I've been on the last three teams so I've gotten to know the guys. Yeah, so most of them have come up and said, glad to see you on. Q. In your own words, what do you think you bring to the team if the thing started tomorrow? MIKE WEIR: If the thing started tomorrow, you know, I might bring a little competitive fire, I think, to the team. I think the team format, I think I like that. Some guys are quiet and just kind of go about their own business and that. I like to -- I liked playing with Trevor. It was his first time when we played in Virginia, you know, just talked to him about what to expect out there. People were yelling, and the movement and just kind of how to control yourself. I think maybe just being a teammate, how I was a teammate playing hockey growing up and a lot of baseball, and I really relish being on a team. I really like that. That's the one thing I miss about playing in an individual sport is that camaraderie with the other guys. You have that a little bit, but at the same time we're trying to beat each other's brains out every week. And then when you get on a team with 11 other guys, it maybe brings out that thing that I miss in team sports. Maybe that's what I bring a little bit. Q. It's probably a hard question to ask you, but what do you suppose that event, the vibe at that event would have been like with you and without you, the difference? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, it's hard to say. I think if myself or Stephen played, it brings more to the event, maybe a little more enthusiasm from the International side, the Canadian people. It brings, I think, a little more enthusiasm, that's for sure. It would have been great if both of us were on, and I thought there was a good shot of that. I think the crowds are still going to be great. Q. Along those lines, there seems to be in the weeks leading up a lot of pressure thinking Gary was going to pick you because of your nationality. We know how it may have made him feel. Did that make you feel uncomfortable? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, it didn't make me feel very good to hear that. I feel like I'm on the team and I'm going to help the team. I don't think I'm there as a sentimental pick. I know what I can do. I haven't been doing it, but I know what I can do, and I've been able to do it most of the time in the Presidents Cup. I've been able to play some good golf in there, and I think that's what Gary saw. I don't think he saw it as a sentimental pick. I think he saw from the last three what I can do and what I bring. At least that's what he told me. Q. We all remember the ear popping moments in '04 at The Abbey, but can you remember the first time or the first moment that you really felt -- worship is too strong a word, but really embraced? Was it after the first win in Vancouver or after The Masters? Was there a moment that you can describe to us? MIKE WEIR: I would say really from playing the Canadian Tour, I always seemed to get a good following. But really when I got my PGA TOUR card, I think, and was going through those six years of playing mini-Tours and playing overseas and struggling, I think when I got my TOUR card and got out there the first year. I remember being in Vancouver the first year in '98 the crowds were unbelievable there, so I really felt like that was it, once I finally got on TOUR. Obviously that first event that I played in Canada and being a TOUR member, I think I started getting a good following there. Q. Loud, huge crowd? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, started getting a big crowd around. That was pretty neat. Maybe even a little before that because when I was playing the Canadian Tour I was in contention at the Air Canada I believe it was '96. If I birdied -- I was standing in the middle of the last fairway, and if I birdied the last hole it may have got me in a playoff, and I hit it in the water and made six (laughter). I was in contention at a PGA TOUR event being on the Canadian Tour, and the crowds were big there. Q. So Sunday you and Tiger, Presidents Cup? MIKE WEIR: You know, I don't know. Q. They're already floating the idea around. MIKE WEIR: Yeah, Jeff said that. Obviously it would be a great opportunity. We all know what he can do. It's like I go back to '99 and I look at -- I barely made it on the team, I played great at the end of the year to make the team, about eighth or ninth on the team, and at the end of the week Peter Thomson came up to me and said, if there's a playoff, you're playing, because I was the guy that was playing the best that week. That's what you've got to look at when you go into the Sunday singles, who's playing the best. Goose was playing great last time, paired up against Tiger. We have 11 other horses on the team, and whoever is really on their game is going to play him. Hopefully I am. That would be great if I was playing great. Q. Could you kind of chronicle your putting? At times you make everything and at times you don't. Have you made any changes recently that have got you back on track? Has it been more mental? Do you feel like you've been rolling the ball well and they're just kind of not going in? Kind of discuss the whole issue. MIKE WEIR: The whole issue? I've been rolling it okay this year. I've been putting -- I haven't been lighting it up I wouldn't think, but I've been putting okay all year. Last week I felt pretty good. It was tough to judge, I felt, last week on those greens with them being so wet. But today, like I said, I mean, that was a good indication to me with perfect greens, I was getting the balls on-line and they were going in with the right speed. That was a great sign. You know, I just smoothed out the rhythm of my stroke a little bit. That was one thing I paid attention to in the last couple weeks, just smoothed out the rhythm of it a little bit more, especially on greens like this when they're super-fast. They're really fast out there right now and really smooth. You can't have too much hit in your stroke. I remember reading a lot about Jack Nicklaus and how he changed his approach to his putting depending on the surfaces. Bumpy greens, he'd put more of a little pop on it, and really smooth greens he'd try to smooth the stroke out. I try to do a little bit of that when I play, and I just had a good feel for them today. Q. Can we go over your card? MIKE WEIR: Like I said, I got off to a nice bonus on the first hole, holed a bunker shot on 1. Tough one, too, from front left. Birdied 2 from maybe 20 feet. I birdied 4, I drove it and had it eight feet or ten feet for eagle on 4. Missed it, but tapped in for birdie. Q. Spike mark? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, old ball mark (smiling). 6, I hit it close there to about three or four feet, hit a pitching wedge in there. Made a nice save for par on 9, made about a ten-footer for par, laid up to about 14, 15 feet, made that for par. Rolled in another about a 12-footer on 10. Bogeyed 11, hit it right of the green and didn't get that up-and-down. Birdied 15, I hit a wedge maybe 20 feet, 18 feet maybe on 15, made that. 8-iron on 16 to about, again, maybe 15 feet, made that one. That was it. Made a nice par on the last. Came up short and dropped back about 75 yards and hit it in about four feet. Q. Of the changes, which one do you like the most? MIKE WEIR: I've never played here. This is the first time. Q. So you liked everything? MIKE WEIR: I liked everything, yeah (laughter). I heard that No. 4, that that was kind of a narrow tee shot and a big -- I like the drivable par 4s because you miss it in the wrong spot with these firm, fast greens, and you're going to be struggling for par. Good risk-reward hole. Q. As an example, and I could ask this of someone who had an eight-foot eagle putt, where could you miss it where you do get in some deep doo-doo? MIKE WEIR: Left. I played with J.J. and he hit it left, and he had to hit it just right to get it barely on the green, and he hit a good shot and it rolled all the way down the hill and he had to make a really good up-and-down for par. That's a really good hole. If you miss it in the wrong spot, even though he was in the fairway you don't have much. Even if you miss it right, you can pitch it up the green. Q. Wasn't this almost impossible for you to play before because of the Canadian Open? MIKE WEIR: That's why I didn't play, because it was a finish on Monday and then the Canadian Open was the week after. I've always got a little bit going on and didn't play here. Q. What would it have been like if you've allowed yourself to think about it had you not been on the roster for Montreal, watching it on TV and on that golf course and in that town? MIKE WEIR: Yeah, that would have been hard. Q. Maybe you wouldn't watch it, I don't know. MIKE WEIR: Oh, sure, I'd watch it. I would watch it. Yeah, that would have been very difficult to watch. It's just like the last couple years when I flip on the TV and I'm watching the TOUR Championship and I'm not in it. I don't like that, either. But I think that would have been a little bit -- probably even a little tougher. Q. Have you spent much time in Montreal, other than the Open -- MIKE WEIR: I was up yesterday. Q. Do you know your way around town? MIKE WEIR: I know my way around town a little bit. I haven't spent a lot of time in the city. Since I wasn't in the Pro-Am yesterday, it's a 40-minute flight up there. We just buzzed up Wednesday night after I played a practice round Wednesday, went up there and played yesterday morning and was back here by 3:00 o'clock yesterday. Q. Have you played the course other than the one -- MIKE WEIR: No. Q. Just the one time, right? MIKE WEIR: Twice, 2001 and '97. So both times there, and outside of that, no. So I knew they had made some changes and I wanted to go up and see them. Yeah, they had changed it quite a bit. Landing areas were much fairer. Before they were really pinched in right at the doglegs and you could hit these nice shaped shots and you'd be in this deep stuff, and they've softened that quite a bit. But then they lengthened the course and toughened some greens on the back side. Q. Growing up, Toronto and Montreal aren't that close, had you really ever gone there for anything? MIKE WEIR: I hadn't. We played some junior matches. We had Ontario-Quebec junior matches, but played in Quebec City and another small town, but never in Montreal. I think the Canadian Tour events that were there, I think I may have played one of them -- it was on the outskirts, but it was not one of the old classic clubs like that. STEWART MOORE: Mike, great round. Good luck this week. End of FastScripts |
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