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ISPS HANDA PERTH INTERNATIONALOctober 15, 2013Bo Van PeltPERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA OLIVIA MCMILLAN: Welcome back to Perth, defending champion of the Perth International. How is it to be back in Perth? BO VAN PELT: Obviously excited to be back, a lot of good memories from last year. I had a great visit even before the tournament started last year, and had a smooth trip. Got here yesterday, so you're coming‑‑ I think it was 33 hours. When you're coming that far, you hope everything goes smoothly, and it did. Actually my body feels pretty good. Got a little practise in yesterday and looking forward to the week. I've had five or six weeks off, so it's kind of itching to get playing golf again. OLIVIA MCMILLAN: And this morning you were down at Cottesloe Beach, one of Perth's most beautiful beaches, how did you find that? BO VAN PELT: It was great. Last year I didn't get in until Tuesday late afternoon so I didn't get any chance to do any sight‑seeing last year. I've always heard good things about the beaches here in are the Perth and got to see one firsthand, and it was gorgeous. I needed to come out here and get some work in. Would have loved to hang out and have some lunch out there, it was beautiful. Brett hit a great shot in there and it was a lot of fun. OLIVIA MCMILLAN: Having won here last year, you must have a lot of great memories of Lake Karrinyup. BO VAN PELT: Last year when I first played the golf course, I really enjoyed it. The weather was good all week. Jason and I had a good little battle on Sunday, and felt fortunate to come out on top. So it was, like you said, had a lot of good memories. I had a pretty good break and I was excited to come back to a golf course that I have those good memories at, so hopefully I'll be ready to go by Thursday. Q. Is it any different coming back as defending champion? BO VAN PELT: Not really. I think obviously you have those good memories that you can pull back on, a golf course that I liked the first time I saw it. But, you know, this year is a different year. You've got to come execute the shots on the following year. Last year when I went to CIMB after I won here, I had won there the year before but none of those really count. Everybody starts fresh on Thursday, so you have to go out and execute. And it's a very challenging golf course to where you have to drive it straight and you have to put it in a good spot near the greens. So any hole out here can jump up and bite you if you're not doing that. Q. Obviously Jason is not here this year; who do you see as a threat? BO VAN PELT: There's a lot of good players that are playing here. Brett's obviously played well. Branden Grace just played The Presidents Cup; Dustin Johnson is one of the best players in the world, and that doesn't even go into all the other guys that are in this field. Whoever wins this week is going to have to play really well. Q. You just had an injury two months ago; all okay now? BO VAN PELT: Yeah, it was kind of lingering all summer. I had kind of started in my foot, my Achilles tendon and went up to my hip. Fortunately I didn't have any tears, so just drained a couple things. With the schedule in the summer, it's pretty tough. We are playing a lot and walking five to seven miles a day and it just kind of caught up with me at the PGA. I was able to get some therapy and play okay those first two Playoff events but I just needed some rest. It was good, like I said, to have five or six weeks off. Been able to get back in the gym and practise as hard as I want to practise, so I feel good. And so I'm looking forward to these three weeks. Q. Having been here last year and knowing the course, compared to others here for the first time, does that give you an advantage? BO VAN PELT: It's helpful to know where to go but it comes down to execution. Last year I saw the golf course just on Wednesday and played fine. So I think at the end, it comes down to execution but obviously being familiar with it, it will probably help my preparation be a little bit more relaxed today and tomorrow just because I do know where the holes go and I kind of have an idea how I want to play the golf course. You know, I think it will just be kind of getting the speed of the greens down. I've heard that they might be running a little bit faster than last year, and so that might change a few things. So it will be‑‑ you know, I think at the end of the day, you've got to hit the shots. Q. 16‑under won it last year; just talking to the superintendent, seems 16‑under this year will probably get there as well. Do you feel like you've got a 16‑under in you this year? BO VAN PELT: Well, we'll see. Obviously my practise has gone really well, but you know, it's different when they hand you that scorecard and you're playing for real. Like I said, it's been five or six weeks since I played a real tournament, and you just never know how that's going to be; if you're going to be a little flat or you know what. So I'm excited, though. I think sometimes we play so much that kind of weeks run into each other. But when you've had a break and you get the chance to come over and play, to me, you feel like a kid again and kind of get excited. So I think I'm just looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to these three weeks and obviously coming back to a tournament that I play well and was lucky enough to win last year, and it's another great field. So to me, I'm excited. Q. Expand on the injury again; were you ever able to figure out what caused it initially? BO VAN PELT: No, not really. I think it's just playing 30‑some weeks a year and practicing and walking, sometimes your body gets out of alignment a little bit, and the pressure that we put on it and the amount of swings and the walking and the working out, I think it just kind of caught up to me. You know, fortunately, like I said, I didn't have any tears, and so‑‑ I've not really had any big injuries, knock‑on‑wood, in my career. So that was like one of the first times I've ever had to not finish a tournament in my whole life, going back 35 years. It's not something that was fun but it could have been a lot worse. Q. The fitness involved in the game of golf, can you just talk us through, how many miles you walk? BO VAN PELT: I think you can go back to when Tiger came on the scene. When I first got on Tour in '99, there were not that many guys in the gym working out. It wasn't hard to find space in there. Now you go in there sometimes and it's too busy. You can't even find a spot to go in there and work out. I think it's just the evolution of the game where guys are doing a 20‑, 30‑minute warmup before they play. They are doing three or four workout sessions after they play during a week. And, you know, they are getting massages, getting physical therapy all the time. All that goes into trying to get your body to 100 per cent every day you play Thursday through Sunday. It just kind of changed, the younger kids coming up, that's just part of their routine. They start getting these customized workouts when they are in junior high. Then they go to college and then by the time they come on Tour, it's kind of part of their DNA. They just know that, hey, if I want to be a professional golfer, I'm working out this much, even on weeks when I'm playing a tournament. So I think that's been the biggest change is they see you play those four or five hours and warm up for an hour before, but there's guys, you know, getting to the golf course two hours before and staying two hours later to get their body ready to go. Q. And I suppose when you come up against guys like Dustin who even before the fitness stuff, is already athletically predisposed; is it that much harder? BO VAN PELT: I think it's the evolution of the game. You look at I think probably 20 years ago, the average height was probably 5‑8 or 5‑9, and now you see guys 6‑3,6‑4 that were good athletes in other sports. You're just going to see more and more of that. Not to say that a guy who is under six‑foot can't play well, because that's not true, but I think overall, you see the level of athlete and the people that it's just‑‑ and guys are just more athletic that are playing; and the work that they are putting into their golf swing and the work into their overall game has changed so much in the last 20 years. Q. How tough is it to come down to Australia, the time zone and the amount of travel? BO VAN PELT: Fortunately through out my career, I feel pretty good when I get to places. I've been able to sleep on planes, and like most guys, we've been doing this a long time, so you kind of get used to sleeping in different beds and different time zones. Now as I get older, sometimes when I go home for a couple days, you don't feel that great. But for whatever reason, when I get to places, it doesn't seem to bother me too bad. I mean, like I said, last year, I didn't get here till Tuesday late afternoon and I felt fine on Wednesday and Thursday all the way through Sunday. So I'm fortunate, that first couple of days when I get back to Oklahoma here in a couple weeks, I won't be striding down any fairways very fastly or very quickly, but I feel pretty good. Q. Just on this morning, have you ever done anything like that before, over water on the beach? BO VAN PELT: I've never done anything to the beach, but I've done some different things. I hit a shot last year at Indianapolis inside the Colts Stadium trying to hit a target. So they come up with some pretty creative ideas, but like I said, it was a beautiful setting. I think it was a lot of fun. Q. The U.S. Tour has already started‑‑ is it tough to come back for two weeks? BO VAN PELT: Not really, I think that‑‑ for me personally, whenever you win a tournament, it's important to come back. That was the easy decision for me. Fortunately the next two tournaments I'm going to play are part of the PGA TOUR season, so I think that made it easier probably. But again, I would have come back regardless. It's a long year, and obviously you don't want to get too far behind. There's going to be guys playing all these fall events, so you don't want to start out in January too far behind. But hopefully I'll play well the next two weeks when they count towards the PGA TOUR Money List and I won't feel like I missed out on any opportunities. Q. What is it about this golf course that suits your eye? BO VAN PELT: I think to me it's pretty straightforward as far as you've got a couple blind tee shot kind of up and over hills, but I think you have to think your way around. You have to position a ball and you know try to play into the right spots on the greens, and be careful about where you miss the ball on the greens and that's something I've always enjoyed. I think there's something‑‑ it just fit my eye. I think that's kind of an ambiguous thing to say, but I think you'll hear other guys say that. Some courses they come to, they just kind of can see the shapes of the holes and for whatever reason, I just like the way this one looked last year when I got here. Q. Your clubs were lost in transit last year; has it been a smoother preparation heading across this time? BO VAN PELT: Like I said earlier, my flights were all on time and smooth, no turbulence or anything. Clubs were there and so that was‑‑ it was nice to kind of, you know‑‑ not that it was a big deal last year. I got them the same day, but it was just kind of have everything go as smoothly as possible. Q. So how do you get from Oklahoma to Perth? BO VAN PELT: I went Tulsa to Dallas, Dallas to Brisbane, and Brisbane to Perth. It was good. I got to see my kids play sports on Saturday morning, so I got to see three games Saturday morning, and I left a soccer game about end of the third quarter, drove to the airport and came here. Q. And last year when you won, did you say that the kids were going to come this year? BO VAN PELT: Yeah, I was hoping to bring my daughter. She's the oldest and she's never been to Australia but she wants to come very badly. The tough part for me was trying to get her back home. They are in school right now, and so you know, my other two, to just leave one or try to get my wife to come over just didn't work out. But if it's not this tournament, maybe somewhere down the road, maybe get to play one of the other events in December kind of when our kids are out of school. I'd love to bring them over. It's a beautiful place, I know they would enjoy it. Q. You said you had the last couple of months off? BO VAN PELT: Last year I played pretty well, I think I finished Top‑10 at the BMW and the FedExCup and THE TOUR Championship. So I had had two good weeks and I didn't qualify for either one of those this year. So I had a few weeks off before I came here. Last year was the same, I guess the only difference was I had two really tournaments before. I had probably three weeks off and this time I had six weeks off, I think it was roughly or thereabouts. OLIVIA MCMILLAN: Thank you very much for joining us and good luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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