home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

MASTERS TOURNAMENT


April 13, 2013


Sandy Lyle


AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

Q.  How was it?
SANDY LYLE:  It wasn't my day.  I started off okay.  I made a good solid par on the first hole, which is always nice to start the day.
I played the second hole well.
And then I played okay for the first sort of six, seven holes.
The 7th hole I did a sloppy second shot.  I finished up pin high just off the green about a yard, which is not a bad spot to be, but the green's getting faster and faster and faster, so I end up making six from right in front of my nose.
At the 18th I made six from 10 feet from the back of the green.
Greens are getting ridiculously fast right now.  It's almost going to become a little bit of a Disney World if we're not careful.  It's drying out and there's some really crispy, fast, fast putts.  So the leaders have got to be very careful the last eight or nine holes.

Q.  (Inaudible.)
SANDY LYLE:  There's some interesting putts out there.  That's what it is.  We all expected it to be fast and they're fast, nothing we can do about it right now.  Just be very careful.

Q.  People have said the greens have been slow this week and now they're not.
SANDY LYLE:  Well, it's not the first time I've played them that they have been fast out here.  And 81 just doesn't reflect the way I played today.  I just 3‑putted four times and missed some greens, so all in all that's four shots I just wasted.
It's not like I've been hitting it in the trees all day, I've been reasonably straight most of the time.
I 3‑putted 9‑‑ just silly things.  You're 20 feet from the hole and you take a bogey at 9 after hitting two good shots on the green.  It's just silly.

Q.  When the speeds are like that you talk about the four 3‑putts, is it because you hit it past the hole because the speed is different?
SANDY LYLE:  Well, I seemed to be grinding every putt today having four or five footers returning and so it was a bit frustrating.  Even on last hole I hit a lovely second shot right covering the pin, thinking I got the distance right at it there and I'm five yards over the back.  And then bladed it down on to the green.  I knew when I hit it it was way too hard, so it went off the green down the other side there.

Q.  Playing on the weekend, it's still a beautiful day, you wanted to play better, but.
SANDY LYLE:  Yeah, I really thought, with the way I've been playing the past two days, 73, 72, that was well within my reach.  Well within my reach.  I was putting pretty steadily, confidence was reasonably high.  Driving the ball most of the time on the fairways.  I'm not going to overpower the par‑5s, I'm just not hitting the ball well enough to be hitting short irons in like 6‑ and 5‑irons in some cases some of the guys are doing.  Or even‑irons in like Dustin Johnson, you know, I'm not in that category.  So I got to work my way with chipping and putting from maybe 70 yards all the time.

Q.  There's been a talk obviously about Tiger Woods this morning.  What's your take on the ruling controversy?
SANDY LYLE:  Well, it was all on video and camera and stuff like that.  I thought it was a bit harsh.  I mean, I might have fallen for the same trap myself of maybe dropping the ball back a few yards maybe to get a flatter lie or something like that.
I thought he was going to get penalized because he didn't drop the ball from where the ball last crossed.  But I gather you can‑‑ I didn't know the rules there very clearly myself, but he has the option of playing from where he just played from or play where the ball last crossed, because obviously when it hit the pin it was a different angle.  And I thought that was what he was going to get penalized for, because he really dropped maybe 20 yards from the wrong place.
But to knock it, you know, whatever it was, two yards further back, you know, he's not gaining any advantage, really.  I would have thought.

Q.  Nick Faldo said he should have disqualified himself.
SANDY LYLE:  I think that's probably a little harsh, disqualifying himself.  But then again other guys could have been disqualified because he signed his card, the card's in, and you find out later on there was a discrepancy in his ruling.  Yeah, you know, that's not my control.  We're only players, we don't know the rules 100 percent and there is people out here that do know the rules.  It's up to the governing bodies to decide.

Q.  What do you make of viewers phoning in to the authorities reporting what they perceive as errors?
SANDY LYLE:  It's not unusual.  It's happened before.  Paul Azinger got done in at Doral about 12‑15 years ago when he played out of the hazard near the 18th green on the third round.  And he just moved a stone with the heel of his shoe.  He was trying to get the stance there and that was so called improving his lie.
And then you've got‑‑ he didn't get disqualified, he got penalized, whatever, two shots, when he returned back to the course the next day.  That's viewers.  But it has been known, so you got to be careful.

Q.  Are the Rules of Golf too complicated?
SANDY LYLE:  Very complicated.  One can't ‑‑ it's like a lawyer's book, it's about an inch and a half thick, we can't possibly know every rule and situation.  We think we do.
But when in doubt out here in a Major, you ask.  Tiger must have had a little bit of fog at the time and he was so frustrated, he had just nipped a very good third shot, you feel sorry for him.  But you just never know in this game.  And that's an unfortunate thing.  He recovered well and ends up being hit with another two‑shot penalty.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297