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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENTJune 6, 2009Matt BettencourtDUBLIN, OHIO JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Matt Bettencourt into the interview room here at the Memorial Tournament. After a 4 under, par 68. Matt, that was quite a ride for you out there. Opened up with three straight pars, and then it was just a roller coaster ride. Comment on the day, please. MATT BETTENCOURT: Yeah, you know, it was. Fortunately, I had quite a few more ups than downs. You know, I hit a couple of loose shots here and there. It's going to happen. This course is so demanding and difficult. You have to hit to a certain part of the fairway or a certain part of the green. So you're really not aiming at the pin a bunch. You know, you've just got to stay committed. Yeah, I was really pleased with how I played. Kept the ball below the hole nicely a few times. Give me some uphill birdie tries. That's important on these greens because, if you're above the hole, you can forget about it. You're putting so defensively. Q. Just overall, Matt, has your rookie year gone as you expected? If you were going to get into contention really for the first time, would you have thought it would have been here? MATT BETTENCOURT: That's a great question. It hasn't gone as expected. You know, I played well, finished with confidence last year. Got out here, different types of golf courses. You know, it take a while to get acclimated to the people and movement. The crowds are so large out here. So that was a big adjustment. So, no, it hasn't gone as I'd hoped, but I've always stayed positive. I believe in myself and my ability to play and to compete against the world's best. You know, whether this tournament will be the one I get in contention. I grew up playing bentgrass and rye grass, and that's what this place is. This is only our fourth tournament all year we've played on true bentgrass greens. This is really cool. Quail Hollow was the first event I played all year on bentgrass, true bentgrass greens, and that was my best finish so far. I really like it. I love these kinds of grasses out here. I feel comfortable. It reminds me of home. Q. Home being? MATT BETTENCOURT: Well, California, where I grew up. Q. This time last year, could you have imagined yourself being in this position? MATT BETTENCOURT: No. You dream about it. In fact, I want to say around this time I was playing the OSU course in the nationwide event, the Nationwide Children's Charity Classic there. It might have been a few weeks later. Yeah. You know, dreams do come true. You just have to stay persistent, believe in yourself and your abilities. The mind's a powerful thing. Q. You mentioned the bentgrass. What is the distinction between the bent and any other grass? How does it feel to you? MATT BETTENCOURT: Well, the two -- I mean, we play -- the West Coast was sandy. The greens were always soft, and they're pretty bumpy. Poa annua grass, which they do get around here. Usually greens will turn to poa. These are just so perfect. We play Bermuda. We went 11 straight weeks with Bermuda. I didn't grow up on Bermuda, and I'm getting better at it. It's a real grainy grass. It's harder to adapt to instead of just reading the actual slope on the green. So it's nice to just go up and look at the slope, and that's how the ball is going to break. These greens are the truest, purest greens I've ever seen in my life. You hit a putt solid, it's online, it's going in every time. It's a real big treat for us to be able to play out here on a conditioned course like this. Q. If your career had never reached the point where you had the chance to be out here on the PGA Tour on a regular basis, would you have always regretted that, or would you have sort of said, you know, I took my best shot and it didn't work out? MATT BETTENCOURT: You know, I would have gone away with my head held high. I took my best shot. I played six years on the Nationwide Tour. That's a great tour. Real competitive. Only 25 guys get their PGA Tour cards each year. So with that being said, you know, I was playing third toughest tour in the world, strongest tour, other than the European Tour. It's pretty darn close to that. Q. Matt, maybe on any level that you've played on, who's the most intimidating name you've ever had a chance to play with in the final round of a tournament? MATT BETTENCOURT: Well, I don't know. You know, I don't get intimidated too easily. But, you know, I played with Rocco three days at Quail Hollow. We hit it off instantly. Played with him the final round there at Quail. So he's probably the biggest name that I played with during a final round. But Rocco and I have the exact same personality. You know, we're like basically brothers now, it seems like. We talk every day. Go to dinner three, four times a week. Play practice rounds with him. He gives me a lot of feedback, you know, on the golf course. So I'd say Rocco is probably the biggest name. Although third round this year, I played with Ernie in my first tournament. That was quite a treat. Q. I'm just interested how you're going to react more and more to some of the guys who are on the board just underneath you. MATT BETTENCOURT: Sure. I can't control what they do at all. I can only play the golf course. Go out and give it my best and have a smile on my face and have a lot of fun out there. This time tomorrow night, we'll see where I stand. But I can't control what anybody else does. Q. My question has kind of already been asked like twice in a row. Along those same lines, you talked a minute ago about always believing in yourself and being able to play on this stage. When you look at a board like that with Ogilvy and Davis and Tiger, what kind of, I guess excitement -- does it bring excitement to you? What kind of emotion does it bring to you? MATT BETTENCOURT: You expect it. This field is so strong here. Mr. Nicklaus asks you to play, you're going to play. So, you know, it's one of the best venues we play. You get all the top names from around the world. If you expect to win, you're going to have to beat the best. And the best are here, and the best are up there. The round Ogilvy played today was absolutely incredible. I didn't see it out there, but, wow, that was a great round. Q. He was finished, I would think, by the time you teed off? MATT BETTENCOURT: He was. Q. What did you think? Quit on 16? MATT BETTENCOURT: Yeah. I'd heard that he shot 9 under par, and I was amazed. I thought, wow, that's incredible. That's great. I can't control what anybody else does. I just go out and try to have fun and play the best that I can play. Q. Did you come close at all in those years on the Nationwide Tour of quitting? Was there ever a point? MATT BETTENCOURT: Yeah, I did. I thought about it. I thought about it in 2007 as Q School was getting to start. I decided to stick it out and keep going with it and got my Nationwide Tour card. I basically set a two-year goal that, if it didn't happen, then it probably wasn't meant to be, but I was going to battle my best. You know, last year finishing number one on their money list was a great thing and a great honor and gets me into pretty much every tournament out here other than the few invitationals, this being one of them, which Mr. Nicklaus and the committee were so gracious to give me a spot. Q. Since we don't know you real well, could you kind of run through your background. College career, you didn't play college golf? You went to junior college? Did you play golf there at all? MATT BETTENCOURT: No, I didn't play golf there. I had some baseball scholarships. I was going to go play baseball. That was probably my best sport. I had hurt my elbow and my shoulder as a pitcher. Can't throw a curveball when you're too young. But I always played golf, played junior golf, played in U.S. Junior, you know. Just was never quite good enough, I would say. Looked upon by college coaches, it wasn't really for me, college golf. Q. So you just went to -- what did you study at junior college for two years? MATT BETTENCOURT: I just did some business course there's and went on to Stanislaus State, which is a division III school and ended up finishing a couple years later. Never played golf. Q. When did you turn pro and how did you turn pro? MATT BETTENCOURT: I played a bunch of amateur golf after that and got pretty good at it, played in three United States amateurs. Made it to the round of 16 -- I don't remember what year it was. Made Match Play all three years. So I was competing against some of the best there. And then in Northern California, I won about 35 amateur tournaments in a two-year stretch there, and that was pretty much every event I played in. So I thought, I'm going to give it a shot. I thought it would be fairly simple to jump right there. Failed the first year of Q School and went on to play the Canadian tour. Played there for a year, two years actually, and then got my Nationwide Tour card. Played for three years, lost my card there. Got it back for a couple. You know, I'm here now in front of you. Q. You mentioned maybe some baseball scholarships. Were you close to getting drafted, you think, if you wouldn't have hurt yourself? MATT BETTENCOURT: I got hurt my senior year. Started my senior year. So, no, probably not because that's when they kind of look at you really aggressively, your senior year. Q. Have you ever been confused for Cleveland Indians reliever Rafael Betancourt? MARK WILSON: No, because it's spelled different. Q. You don't get each other's fan mail? MATT BETTENCOURT: No. Q. Could you tell us a little bit about what you consider to be your strong suit as a player? Some things maybe you need to work on. MATT BETTENCOURT: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm pretty long off the tee. Distance is a big advantage to me. I can get to pretty much every par 5 out here. So that's always an advantage, if I can keep my tempo pretty good and hit the ball pretty straight. So putting for me has been the most up and down. My putting stats haven't shown to be real good this year, and I pay attention to it. It's just a matter of getting comfortable with everything. I have 14 new clubs in my bag that I've had for -- this is my second tournament. Had a little mishap a couple weeks ago, and my clubs were stolen. It's turned out to be a blessing. Q. Did they catch the guy? MATT BETTENCOURT: No. Q. When you were flying or what? MATT BETTENCOURT: I had a little accident, the incident there at the Nelson Tournament. Q. How close were you to the water on 14 and 18? MATT BETTENCOURT: Yeah, 14, it was strange. It's 282 yards to the water. I hit a 3 iron, which has normally been no problem at all. I'd love to see it on television because I just put a new ball in play. We got up there and had a nick on it, and you could see it because it was right next to the hazard. I almost wonder if I hit a sprinkler head. I was talking to Peter Kostis about it. The ball went 350 yards, and I picked my tee up, and it was absolutely perfect. I didn't have a stance there. I was kind of trying to bump with a pitching wedge. I couldn't get a good enough angle with my stance to get to the front of the green, and it came out real fast. I didn't have much. 18, I hit the wrong club off the tee. I had some adrenaline going. I hit 3 wood and went 350 yards. It was going downhill. The wind was favoring down from right to left. If I'm in that position tomorrow, hit a wedge. If it's a little more down, hit a driver. Q. What was the incident that led to the clubs being lost? MATT BETTENCOURT: I had to -- I came downstairs from my hotel room, stuck the clubs in the courtesy car, went and had breakfast. Somebody in that 20-minute stretch had broken a window, taken my clubs. Q. Is that all they took? MATT BETTENCOURT: I had my wedding ring in there. So it was kind of frustrating. Yeah, that's what they took. Q. What day was that? MATT BETTENCOURT: It was Wednesday before the Nelson. Q. So it was a TaylorMade? MATT BETTENCOURT: TaylorMade was there. They made me up a set of clubs. It takes a little bit of tweaking, but they've done a great job. I was hitting an old TaylorMade driver. This could be a blessing in disguise because I'm now hitting the new R9 460, and it's the greatest driver I've hit. I'm not saying that because it's new. It's really working for me. It's actually a blessing in disguise. Q. So you don't think TaylorMade are the guys that broke into the car just to get you to try the new club? MATT BETTENCOURT: No. It's just one of those things? Q. Were you at the Four Seasons there? Where did this happen? MATT BETTENCOURT: I was at another hotel across the road. Q. Were the TaylorMade guys able to get you a replacement wedding ring? MATT BETTENCOURT: That they haven't been able to do. I did order one and got it sent home. Q. Did your wife ask you what it was doing off your finger? MATT BETTENCOURT: I don't play with it. I got married March 14th. I've tried to play with it, and I can't. I took my ring off and put it in my jewelry pouch in my golf bag. Literally, I walked in 20 minutes for breakfast, came back out, and I was going straight out to the golf course. I was going to go right to the range. That didn't happen. We learned. Q. What day was that? MATT BETTENCOURT: That was Wednesday. JOHN BUSH: Matt, thanks for coming by. End of FastScripts |
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