	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

TURNING STONE RESORT CHAMPIONSHIP

August 4, 2010

Steve Flesch

VERONA, NEW YORK

ADAM WALLACE: I'd like to welcome Steve Flesch to the interview room. Steve, you won here in 2007. This is the first year that this event has been in the FedExCup. You're a little outside the Top 125 right now, and if you can kind of take us through your thoughts coming into this week and your goals for the rest of this season.
STEVE FLESCH: Well, this is my last victory, so I'd like to back up the '07 victory with another one. But I'm really curious how the golf course is going to play this time of year. We haven't been up here. Like you say during the FedExCup and an event like this should -- I think every event should have points. You know, fall events I think should have points somehow as well, but it's deserving of having points just like every other event.
The course is going to be very different from the previous time of year we've been here. I mean we wore stocking hats and rain gear, rain gear and sweaters the last few years. It was pretty tough.
But the year I won it was perfect, firm and fast and dry and nice and warm. I'm hoping, you know, I find -- the last few years, honestly, the course was too long for me. It was soft and cold. The ball was going nowhere, and it just was a different golf course than I'd played in '07.
But you know, it's a great spot. It's a good course, and you know, I think you're going to continue to see low numbers like we've seen the last few weeks. Guys are just going crazy. Now 60 is the new 70, unfortunately.
But it's going to be exciting. I'm going to be curious to see what kind of scores are shot since the tournament is this time of year now.
ADAM WALLACE: Okay. Thank you. Questions?

Q. (No microphone).
STEVE FLESCH: You know anymore, length is not a determinate of what guys are shooting score wise anymore. I wish the architects would figure that out, that you don't need 7500-yard golf courses to make them tough. Some of the best golf courses we play are 400-yard par-4s that are narrow with a lot of trouble, you gotta think a little bit. It's not just a driver.
Even last week, you know, 470-yard par-4s I'm even hitting 6 and 7-irons in. I'm playing with Davis Love, he's hitting 9s and wedges 470. So you can string a hole bunch of those together, but if guys are making putts, they can shoot 59 anywhere.
But anymore I think guys just putt better than ever; the depth of the fields are stronger than ever, and guys aren't afraid to just keep racking up birdies out there and that's why guys -- you know, all it takes, like in Canada you saw one guy shot 60 or 62. Everyone thought playing practice round, man, this place is going to be hard. Then Brent Delahoussaye shot 62, and then it's like, okay, it can be done. Boom, the next day Carl Pettersson shoots 60 on Saturday. It just takes one person to go out there and do it and then everybody else's mindset is like, okay, it can be done. And now I think people say anywhere it can be done now.

Q. What defense does this course have against the players at this level now?
STEVE FLESCH: Well, it's very generous driving. I haven't played yet. I'm going to play the Pro-Am today, so I don't know what kind of rough we have out there or how firm it is, but I know we got rain last night.
You know, the defense here is there's plenty of long holes, but the bunkering is really good around the greens, and you have to be precise with your iron shots. And if the greens are carrying speed, that's always been a good defense here.
You know, there's always a break-even point. The last couple weeks in Canada, and my God, where were we last week?
ADAM WALLACE: Greenbrier.
STEVE FLESCH: Greenbrier. The greens were slowish, compared to what -- there was so much ventilation in Canada. Last week it was just so hot they couldn't get them fast without losing them, but when you get a combination of like 10 on the Stimpmeter, soft greens, guys are going to shoot zero, as we've seen.
But these greens generally run a little faster than 11 and a half, and there's enough slope where I think this course will hold up well.

Q. The fact that you won on this course when it was warmer conditions three years ago, how much of an advantage do you think you have compared to a lot of guys in the field who may have only seen this course when it was, as you said, much longer and more difficult or just longer?
STEVE FLESCH: I'd love to think that I have a big advantage, but these kids nowadays they don't -- I say kids because at 43 I feel like I'm the wily veteran out here, obviously. But these 25, 26-year-old kids, I mean they just get up and nail it. And maybe last year they hit the same drive, they had 4 or 5-iron in, this year they're going to have 7-iron, they've already forgotten last year.
You know, it's the nature of the beast anymore out here. It's just pedal to the floor and go, and these young guys, I mean they learn quickly and they're good.
See, I hope it gets breezy or something like that out here where you need to call on maybe some experience, but I don't know. These young guys are good.

Q. Do you still think this is a second-shot course? I remember you saying that.
STEVE FLESCH: Yeah, I do. And that's what I was saying about the irons, you gotta be precise with the irons and the bunkering because you have to be in the right place. It's just not a matter of getting on the greens because if you're in the wrong section of the greens here, it's not an easy two-putt. So you have to be, especially to have birdie opportunities you have to be in the right section of the greens, but it's not always easy to get there, especially on some of the longer par-4s, even the 5s because you have to be in the right place because if you get stuck on the wrong side of the hole, two-putt is good. So you can drive, it's very generous driving it, but you gotta be a good iron player around here.

Q. You said this is your last win. How much do you reflect on that or do you try not to until you come back to the venue?
STEVE FLESCH: It's more just trying to get good vibes, you know, a little momentum, just you know, good memories when you come back to places like that.
There's a half a dozen golf courses throughout the year that I show up and I just automatically feel comfortable, and you know, I haven't necessarily won at all of them, but just good finishes, you know, you're comfortable on the tee shots. Everything just seems to fit, and this is one of them.
I like driving the ball off these tee boxes. I just feel comfortable compared to some other courses. Like in Canada two weeks ago, I just -- I was uncomfortable on every tee shot, just the way it looked or the dogleg wedge, it went right but the ground went left, stuff like that. To a left-hander sometimes or a right-hander even, it just doesn't look right, but I'm comfortable here.
ADAM WALLACE: Okay. Thanks a lot, Steve. Good luck this week.
STEVE FLESCH: Thanks.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297