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MERCEDES-BENZ CHAMPIONSHIP 2008December 31, 2007Woody AustinKAPALUA, HAWAII DOUG MILNE: Thanks for joining us for a few minutes today. Obviously not the ideal weather day. Just a couple opening comments, what you've been working on in the off-season and some of the things you've been engaging in. WOODY AUSTIN: I don't do anything in the off-season because it's too cold usually. We've had a lot of snow this off-season. We're not usually known for a lot of snow in Kansas, but we've gotten quite a bit. I have done nothing. In the two and a half months off I played the Shark Shootout. That's it. So no preparation. Got out here a couple days early hoping to prepare and haven't had any good days since I've been here. Unfortunately I'm about as rusty as I possibly can be. The whole thing about coming out here, bring the family out. It's a great week to enjoy. A lot of things for the kids to do. I brought along my wife's sister's family, so boogie boarding the last couple days at the beach, snorkeling today, submarine tomorrow. They're flying over to Pearl Harbor I think on Thursday and Friday, so plenty of things for them to do. Q. Are you playing next week? WOODY AUSTIN: No. I'm not a big lover of that golf course. Usually each year I usually start out at the Hope because I know -- like I said, not getting to play, I know I'm guaranteed four rounds of play there. So it's kind of one of those things where I'd rather play there and get in for sure four rounds and work on my game as to fly over here. It could be blowing 50 miles an hour, it could be -- it's not good preparation and you're not ready, and I'm not ready to play. Q. It's been around for at least nine years now, but just listening to some of the guys who are Hopers, so to speak, might not be going to Sony and the earliest you can get into Bob Hope is Monday afternoon and the tournament starts Wednesday. Do you see that becoming a problem? WOODY AUSTIN: Obviously it can be, there's no question about that. I think also, though, the guys that have been out here long enough should know all the golf courses well enough anyway. Q. Unless they change them. WOODY AUSTIN: Yeah, it just depends on how you like to prepare, really. Like I said, if you're one of the guys that lives in Florida or Texas or California and you've been able to practice over this period of time you should be fine. If you're someone where wherever I go, that's my preparation, that's why I choose the Hope because I know I'm going to get in those six days. I could play like a dog and play four tournament rounds of golf to start working on my game. Where if I fly out to Hawaii and I get out there, like I said, it might be blowing 40 or 50 and I'm only guaranteed two rounds. Do I want that to be my first bit of preparation or do I want to go somewhere I have more time to prepare? So that's why I choose that one over the other one because I don't get to play in the winter and when I do play it's 45 degrees outside. Q. You get four rounds this week, you know that? WOODY AUSTIN: Yeah, but this is an easy one to say I'm going to start here. This year I can play here, but obviously I haven't gotten to prepare the last couple days, unless you can dodge the rain bullets. Q. When did you get in? WOODY AUSTIN: Friday night. Q. Was your, quote-unquote, off-season maybe a little different this year given the amount of attention you've gotten, Presidents Cup and beyond? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, obviously it was different because I finally got in a silly-season event. That's my first one in 13 years, so I finally got to play. So that was nice. And like I said, even though it was one week, at least I got to play golf for one week. So even though that was almost a month ago now, a little over three weeks, I haven't gotten to play since. But at least I'm not here after two and a half months of nothing; at least I had a week in there where I did something. Q. I just wondered if telephone traffic or mail or anything was a little higher. WOODY AUSTIN: Not really. I guess the only thing is more references to the water incident. That's about it. As far as anything else golf-related or whatever, no, just more of the splash. Q. Does that get tiring? WOODY AUSTIN: You know, I'm a golfer. I want to be known for golf. I don't want to be known for water exploits. I talked to Rolf on Golf Hawaii today, and we were figuring out if I walked out and talked to ten people how many people would know that I birdied the last three holes to halve that match. That's what you want to be known for. I got up, I dried off, and I birdied three holes in a row for a halve. All they know is I dunked my head in the water. Q. At least three people here know that, maybe four. WOODY AUSTIN: But I'm going to be known for Phil's moniker and everything else. Q. For a quote-unquote silly-season event, the last day at the Shark Shootout really got the adrenaline going? WOODY AUSTIN: It was a blast. I couldn't ask for a better partner. Me and Mark are very similar in a lot of ways. We're both not big-time practicers and ball hitters. We don't over emphasize a lot of stuff. We're not afraid to crack on each other so we had a lot of vibes going back and forth, and we're both very laid back when it comes to the outer aspects of golf. It couldn't have been a better pairing for me for my first ever. We got along great, and we both played well. I was shocked. Like I said, I hadn't played since Disney. I didn't know how I was going to play, but I played a lot better than I thought I would. Q. There was some people that thought that threw a spark into Norman, too. WOODY AUSTIN: Well, he certainly played good. He really rolled the putter great. But he hit a lot of good shots. He still has -- I think Chrissy is keeping him in great shape playing tennis because he looks like he's in phenomenal shape. With him it's a matter of whether he really wants to. He's got so many things on his plate, it's just a question of whether he wants to play. Q. What's your World Ranking? 40ish? WOODY AUSTIN: I think I'm 33rd or something like that. Q. I was just curious, on the World Cup did you get an offer to go there and turn it down because of Thanksgiving? Did it not fall to you? WOODY AUSTIN: It did fall to me, but by the time it fell to me I already had my Thanksgiving plans, so I'm not going to break up my Thanksgiving plans. It's just like anything, the whole fiasco of getting ripped for not going to the British. If you're prepared and ready, then it's no problem. But when it's a last-minute thing and it's not, then it's not fair to tell my family, my kids and whatever, oh, no, we're not going to do this, I'm going to fly to China. Q. If you had the time and would say yes, who would you probably take with you? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, that's just it. I didn't know I could do that, either. I thought my partner -- when I was contacted, I thought my partner was Sean O'Hair. I didn't know you could change. So when I saw that, and Boo decided to go, and then he took Heath, that's when I called my manager and said, what's up with that? He goes, oh, he could have chose. I go, I didn't know that. I would have asked anybody to go. Like I said, I didn't know how all that stuff worked. But it was a simple decision for me so that's probably why I didn't think much about it, the fact that it was during Thanksgiving and I already had plans. Q. How much of you wants to harness how well you played last summer and bring it forward? WOODY AUSTIN: I want to continue to show that I am capable of playing at the level I know I am. I still don't think I've reached where -- I think it's obviously a lot harder now than -- I'll be 44 here in a couple weeks. It's sad that I'm starting to show how good I am at the end of my career as opposed to maybe in my prime or whatever. But I still know that there's a lot more that I can accomplish, it's just a matter of whether or not I can do it as my body starts to wear down. So we'll see. Q. What do you think was the biggest surprise last year? WOODY AUSTIN: I guess -- well, if you think in terms of surprise, I guess the biggest thing is everyone's perception of how great I played. I didn't think -- I played two really good tournaments. If you look from the year, you've got to look at it, everybody keeps saying, you had a good year. No, I didn't. I had a good month and a half, two months. If you look at the whole year, the start of the year I played terrible until I got my game back. I finally found it at Jack's tournament, the Memorial. I could see the work that my caddie and I have been working on. We had been working on a few things and you could see it coming around about Memorial. When I left the Memorial you could see it coming. And then sure enough it jumped out there, and from Memphis on I played fine. But that's not a year, that's just a little window there. I want it to be -- the thing, if you go back to when I first came out, my first couple years, consistency, and that's my game, and I haven't been consistent. That's how I determine a year. I don't determine two months of the year. From start to finish, that's what I'm looking for, to go from start to finish. I have a hard time at the beginning of the year. I don't care how long you've been playing or whatever, you can't take two months off and think your golf game is going to be there. Q. Do you think of yourself as an underachiever or an overachiever? WOODY AUSTIN: I'm underachiever, no question, in my mind because I know how good I could be or how good I could have been if I would have got out here -- if I would have got out here out of college and had all the things that everybody else did, I'm definitely an underachiever, no question. Q. Why didn't you get out here right out of college? WOODY AUSTIN: Not everybody has things go their way. I tore my knee up pretty bad right out of college. I started all over. This game is very expensive, and back then we didn't have -- the Nationwide Tour wasn't what it is now. We didn't have the Nike at the time. You played the mini-Tours in Florida. Mini-Tours in Florida are expensive. And without any backing -- I had no backing -- that's expensive. That's what people don't realize. Back in that day it was $300 for a two-day tournament. Where are you going to come up with $300 for a two-day tournament, and you have no sponsors, no backing? And then if you win the tournament you win $1,000. That pays for a couple more, but you still have to pay all your bills. So it was hard back then. Q. So what's the difference now? Did we get better players then because of how hard they had to work to get to where they are or are they better off now because of how much are given to them, opportunities on the Nationwide, things like that? WOODY AUSTIN: I think if you look at it from a certain standpoint, your great grinders, your guys that really gut it out and find ways to win and do things are guys from the older days, the Corey Pavins, what have you. Q. Joe Durant maybe? WOODY AUSTIN: Right. Your guys now are more seasoned, and let's face it, if you're given -- I've always said if you're given 30-some weeks to prove that you're pretty good, you should be able to prove it in 30-some weeks, especially if you've prepared yourself by playing the Nationwide for two or three years, or nowadays in college you've got all these amateur events and all these tournaments you can play, and they're a lot more seasoned. Back when we got out of college you got one shot and one shot only to get your card out of Q-school, and that was it. What were you doing if you didn't make it? Q. Working in a bank. WOODY AUSTIN: There you go. So where's your preparation? How are you preparing to make it out here? When the Nationwide or Nike, when it first came about, why were the guys that came off there and got to the TOUR not so successful as they are now? It was early on, so they weren't seasoned yet. Now there's so many avenues to play now. Guys play everywhere. There's so many tournaments that guys are prepared. You get your 20-year-olds now who have been playing competitive golf for so long, whereas when I was in college I had very little background. I played very few junior tournaments, very few anything. But nowadays there's so many avenues to play. So now all the guys coming out are way more prepared or seasoned than they used to be. But on that same note, you get guys that have had success, they almost feel obliged that when it doesn't, they don't know how to handle it. Like I said, there's the difference between the good player of today in that form as to the good player in our day, who had to bust his butt and earn it a lot more so he has a better way of dealing with those adversities or what have you. There's too many stories nowadays about guys if they don't get their way. There's too much complaining, way too much complaining nowadays. Q. When were you a Q-school Medalist? It was Greenleaf, but it was -- WOODY AUSTIN: It was in '94. Q. Was there some kind of story there that kept you playing golf when you were close to not playing anymore? WOODY AUSTIN: Well, I was still working at the bank. The thing leading up to it was in '93 -- actually it was in the summer of '92. I took out a $2,000 loan from the bank to pay for the entry fees into the Dakotas Tour because you had to pay those up front. I won a tournament in Orlando, one of the little ones there in Orlando. It was called the Florida Coast Golf Tour, whatever it was, and I got $1,200 for that. That was my spending money for those eight weeks on the road. I got in a car with a good friend of mine, and we drove up. We stopped to try and Monday qualify for the Nike event, and then we were going to play the seven weeks of the Dakotas Tour, plus we played the Waterloo Open. When I got to the first stop, that check bounced, so I was in the Dakotas with no money. I had no money at all. I was broke. So I borrowed the $300 from the guy there to get in the Waterloo Open that next week, and if I didn't make any money, I was done, and I won the Waterloo Open. Q. What did that pay you? WOODY AUSTIN: Ten grand. I still have that cardboard check. I was completely broke. I got that call. My wife called me up and said, "We've got problems." That Tour went under and so that check bounced and I had no money. All my money was -- like I said, I borrowed the money from the bank, so I had nothing. That was my last gasp. So I won that, then I won the first event of the Dakotas Tour, which was Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so I made enough money to go back home, put my money into Q-school, made it to the finals of Q-school, got my Nike card for '94, finished about 40-something, I think, which got me to the finals of Q-school. Top 50 I think it was got you to the finals of Q-school, and then I won Q-school in December of '94. Q. When you headed off to the Dakotas, had you planned at that point on going to Q-school? WOODY AUSTIN: Yeah, I was trying to make the money. Q. To get the money to go to Q-school, so after doing well in Sioux City you got enough money to come home and pay your fee? WOODY AUSTIN: Right. Q. So if you don't do well in Sioux City or Waterloo, you're not at Q-school? WOODY AUSTIN: If I don't do well at Waterloo I'm done, period, because I've got no money to even keep going to the Dakotas and play. Q. You don't win the Buick Open or birdie the last three holes of the Presidents Cup? WOODY AUSTIN: Who's to say where you are, but I certainly wouldn't have been at Q-school in '94, I certainly wouldn't have been on the Nike Tour, I guess it was, in '94, because '93 I would have been back in the bank saving money again to try to start up again. And that's the hard part, is to save the money to not only pay your bills but to save the money to then try and play. Like I said, it's not -- back then it was so expensive to play each two-day event in Orlando. I mean, $300 to $500 for a two-day event. Q. What was Shannon doing? WOODY AUSTIN: Shannon was working two jobs. When I first met her, I met her in Kansas when I flew out to Kansas to try and Monday qualify for the Nike event in Kansas. I met her -- when she moved, she gave up everything, so she had to start all over. She was a hairdresser, so she had to start all over. She had to work two jobs because she lost all her clientele in Kansas. She started in Florida with nothing, so she wasn't making any money at all because the hairdressers, the way it works for them is when she starts over she only gets people that walk into the salon. She only got the walk-ins so she wasn't making any money. She also worked in the cosmetics department at like an Albertson's or something. I worked in the bank and bartended. That was it. We saw each other at night to get a kiss, and that was it. Q. Where did you bartend in Tampa? WOODY AUSTIN: I bartended at Sidelines Sports Bar. Q. Is that the big one down near the stadium? WOODY AUSTIN: It was one that was run by a guy from high school, and his father put up the money -- it was off of Dale Mayberry, a little corner strip there, but it was a nice sports bar, so I bartended there on the weekends during football games and what have you. Monday and Tuesday were the tournaments in Orlando, and I'd work in the bank Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and bartend Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, and that was my routine. That was my routine. DOUG MILNE: Woody, as always, we appreciate your time. End of FastScripts |
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