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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIPJune 24, 2012Marc LeishmanCROMWELL, CONNECTICUT DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome the 2012 Travelers Championship winner, Marc Leishman. Marc, congratulations on winning your first PGA TOUR win right here at the Travelers Championship. Seems to be kind of a breeding ground for first‑time PGA TOUR winners, and that was quite the impressive way to do it with your final round 62 today. With the win you move to number 23 on the FedExCup points race, just in the thick of things, so with that being said I'll turn it over to you. Just some comments on the week in general. Obviously they want to hear all about your 62 today. So with that I'll turn it over to you. MARC LEISHMAN: Well, what an awesome week really. I don't know where to start really. What did I shoot Thursday? What, 3‑under, 2‑under? I can't remember. But I played pretty good all week. Probably yesterday was a little bit of a struggle. Didn't get off to the greatest start, and then had a good round and finished on 17, 18, doubled 17, bogeyed 18. Sort of fired me up a little bit to really go out and do some damage today. I said to Mattie on the range this morning, my caddie, I said we probably need to get to 15‑under to have a chance and let's go out and shoot 61. Then when we were on the putting green just before we teed off saw Hunter Mahan walk past and he shot 61. So why not. Waking up this morning I definitely didn't think I was going to be in this situation, but I'll gladly take it, and I don't know. It's an unbelievable feeling. It's probably not the way I would have expected to get my first win. But what do you say, you take them when you get them, any way you can. DOUG MILNE: With that we'll take questions. Q. Marc, was waiting the easiest part or the hardest part of the day? MARC LEISHMAN: I would say ‑‑ I don't know. Probably the hardest. Like you don't really get nervous when you're on the golf course unless you get, you know, right in it at the end. So I would say, yeah, waiting around is really hard, especially when ‑‑ well, it wasn't too bad because, you know, Charley was ahead, and it didn't look like I had much of a chance. So it went in patches. It was sort of hard, easy, hard. But no, it was a lot of fun. Q. What did you do for the two hours, and at what point did you realize you had a chance to win? MARC LEISHMAN: Just got something to eat and then sat down, watched a little bit of soccer. I turned it over. I didn't want to watch the golf the whole time because I would have been sweating. So I turned it on about ‑‑ I think Charley was on the 15 when I turned the golf on. Watched that and then just went over and hit some balls and putted for a bit, and it turned out well that it was a practice session, not a warmup session. I was very happy about that. Q. Did you go to the practice range before or after watching Charley on 17? MARC LEISHMAN: After. I didn't go to the range until he'd finished. Q. What were your thoughts about 17? Is that when you figured you had a chance at that point? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah, that's when I thought I had a chance, on 17. I thought I'll wait and see what he does on 18, see if he birdies it. To be honest, I was expecting him to birdie 18 and I could have just gone home. But yeah, once he finished, I thought there's a real chance here. I don't know. It's pretty ridiculous. I really didn't think I was going to be in this situation, and this is cool. Q. What are your thoughts on those final four holes in general, and then your thoughts on how you played them today? You were one of the only players on the leaderboard who was under par for that stretch? MARC LEISHMAN: That's probably the only time for the week I've been under par on that stretch. I've played those four holes pretty bad all week. I think I doubled 17 one day. Might have played them five‑over before today, I think. So that was a goal of mine to get through there under par. They're awesome holes because every single one of them are birdie holes. Whether you're chipping to 15 or putting, you got 8‑iron into 16, 9‑iron into 17 and then you hit the wedge into 18. So if you hit good shots, you can make birdies. You could realistically birdie all four of them. If you hit bad shots, like me and Charley both showed you can double 17 in the blink of an eye. 15, you can end up in the water easily if you don't hit that bad a shot. It's a really good finishing stretch. Q. This is a pretty big moment for you obviously. Did you have anybody here close to you, any family, any friends, any coaches? And if not, have you communicated with them and how have you communicated what happened here today? MARC LEISHMAN: Obviously Mattie, my caddie, he's here. He's one of my best mates growing up. So it's really good to have him here. Apart from that, obviously a few other caddies and players are here. But apart from that, no one. Just I'm staying by myself always. Eating by myself most nights. So it was a pretty boring week to be off the golf course. I love having my family here. It's so good to have Audrey and Harvey here. I really wish they could have been here. Q. Did you call them or text them or anything? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah. I've spoken to my wife, but I haven't spoken to my mom and dad back in Australia or coaches or anything like that. That'll happen tonight. Probably mom and dad probably woke up this morning and got a real shock when they scrolled ‑‑ they didn't have to scroll down too far at all to find my name on PGATOUR.com. Probably gone to bed, though, probably not expecting a whole lot. Yeah, they would have got a real shock when they woke up this morning. Q. Can you describe kind of your emotions on when you watched Charley on 17 and feeling for what he was going through? MARC LEISHMAN: Yeah. You never want to see anyone go through that. You know, you'd rather ‑‑ you take any tournament that you win, they're so hard to win and you take them any way you get them. But you'd almost rather make a few birdies coming in, like myself, end the pressure, make a few birdies to win rather than have someone hand it to you. But having said that, I'm not going to give this back or anything. That's a good way to have your first win. Webb showed last week, not that he got it handed to him. But he got finished early, probably not as early as I did, but he got finished early. Didn't probably deal with as much pressure as you would if you were off in one of the last couple groups. At the Byron Nelson a few weeks ago I had a real good chance to win there and had a bogey coming in and didn't end up winning, but that had a lot to do with how I played today. I thought once I got in contention, once I saw my name, I thought I had a chance if I made a couple more birdies coming in. That really helped me, being under that pressure there. It made me feel a lot more relaxed today. Q. (No microphone. Question about first‑time winners.) MARC LEISHMAN: I think the last four holes have a lot to do with it. I mean the whole golf course you can shoot a really low score here, as a few guys have shown this week. But if you're not playing well, it'll punish you. There's a lot of hard drives, the drive on 13. If you're not feeling good about your golf game, that's a tough tee shot. But it's a golf course if you're playing good, you can make a lot of birdies. You can come from behind, like I did today. It's one of those courses where ‑‑ I don't know whether that's why first‑timers have won because ‑‑ I don't know how the other guys won. I can't remember if they came from behind or what they did. But you can shoot a low one, and with that finish you'd probably ‑‑ there's finishing four holes on a lot of other golf courses that you'd rather play with a two‑shot lead coming in than the ones here. There's a lot of trouble if you're not hitting good shots. Q. Secondly, what did you have for dinner last night and what was sort of your thought process as you went to bed last night? MARC LEISHMAN: Dinner last night, I had Chipotle. I went out with Bads, and actually Ricky Ponting. He was the captain of the Australian cricket team for ten years. He was over here yesterday watching us play, and we had dinner with him as well. So that'll be probably pretty big news in Australia. But yeah, just had ‑‑ what did I have? A bowl from Chipotle with all sorts of stuff thrown in there. Q. Was he watching you today? MARC LEISHMAN: Not today. He just came out yesterday. He was in New York for a few days. Q. Did you feel like you had a shot to win going to bed last night? MARC LEISHMAN: I mean you always think you got a chance, and I did think I had a chance, but I needed some help from the leaders. I thought if I could get to 15, like I said to Mattie on the range this morning, if I can get to 15‑under, that's where we need to get to. Anything less than that is probably touch and go, because there was two at 12 and maybe a couple at 10, and I thought someone ‑‑ the 12s they'll probably have to play pretty good to shoot 3‑under in the pressure, and the 10s, if they shoot five. I sort of calculated it and thought 15 was the number and ended up being 14. So I was reasonably close. But when I finished I still didn't think it was probably good enough. I thought it was going to need 15 or 16. Q. I was just about to ask when you putted out on 18 if you thought that you would have any chance, and you just answered that. Where do your folks live and what's the time difference? MARC LEISHMAN: They live in Warrnambool, Australia, which is down near Melbourne. I don't know what time it is now. What time is it? 5:07. Oh, 7:00. So it's 9:00 in the morning there. Q. And their names. MARC LEISHMAN: It's Paul and Pelita. P‑E‑L‑I‑T‑A. So they're back there and my sister and her kids and husband are there. My coach is there. Denis McDade. He's my coach. He also coaches Marcus Fraser, and he lost in a playoff on the European Tour today. So would have been nice if Frase could have knocked that off. And that was actually a little bit of incentive for me. I was watching before I teed off Frase on TV. Trying to get one for Denis. So it was, yeah, good to be able to do it. Good day for him. Q. What about winning the Travelers? It's an historical event and you're joining the ranks of some pretty good golfers. Personally, what does that feel like? MARC LEISHMAN: Unbelievable. It definitely hasn't sunk in yet. It's been a while since I've won a tournament. Probably four years, I guess. So to have this sitting next to me knowing it's mine for a year is pretty cool. It's going to take a while to sink in, I think. Like I said out on the green, people say that they don't know how they feel, you know, excited, all that, of course. But I really don't know how I feel. It's amazing. Q. Greg Norman is the only other Aussie to win this. Do you know him very well or do you have any associations with him? MARC LEISHMAN: I've played with him a few times. Played with him last year at the PGA. I haven't had a whole lot to do with him, but I've played with him a few times. He's a really good bloke, and it's awesome to be on any trophy that he's on, along with other names. I mean Arnold Palmer I can see here. It's a bit weird to know that Arnold is on there. But it's good. Hopefully I can back it up and add a few more trophies to the collection. DOUG MILNE: Okay. Marc Leishman, congratulations. 2012 Travelers Championship winner. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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