SANDERSON FARMS CHAMPIONSHIP

October 1, 2025

Rasmus Højgaard

Country Club of Jackson

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Rasmus Højgaard to the Sanderson Farms Championship. Coming in off a successful European team victory in the Ryder Cup, I guess the first question I'll ask you is how are the energy levels coming into this week?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: The energy level is not very high. The last few days it's been quite rough, but it was all worth it.

Q. This is your first start here in the Sanderson Farms Championship. Having said that coming in here, have you had a chance to play the golf course or look at it or ask anybody about it, and what have you learned?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: No, I had my caddie out walking the course. I think he did it yesterday. Yeah, I'm planning to play nine holes in the pro-am later today, and that will be my practice round.

Q. How different was this Ryder Cup last week compared to the one two years ago, because I know you were involved in the backroom of that, but how different was it to actually be competing in it this year?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: Yeah, the Ryder Cup in Rome, I guess I was part of the team in a way, but I wasn't really in the players' team room. I stayed away from that.

It was certainly a different environment being a player and being there with everyone, especially in New York, and it was super special.

I think Luke and his whole team did prepare us well for whatever we were going to face.

Q. Like you said, coming off a lot of kind of few days' rest and everything. As a professional golfer, what goes into preparing for another tournament like this, coming off such an electric one just a few days ago?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: Well, the thing for me is that I still have some things that I'd like to achieve for the rest of the year, and I had this planned all the time that I was going to play this week and play Japan next week.

Whatever the outcome would have been last week, I was still going to tee it up this week. Yeah, just had to prepare myself that the energy level might be a little lower than it would be normally.

But certainly I'm still going to prepare myself as well as I can.

Q. Coming off a Ryder Cup win, do you think that gives you a little bit more confidence heading into this week? A lot of these guys maybe haven't played in a week or two, but you're coming off such a good tournament win. Does that give you a little bit more confidence heading into the week?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: Yeah, I guess it certainly gives you confidence being a part of the team and being there, playing golf in that environment for sure.

Again, now it's back to being on my own again and having my own team do our thing. Again, it's going to be completely different being out there this week, but again, I'm going to treat it as any other event.

Q. Coming from kind of a team event back to your own team, how do you make that quick transition?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: I think we all -- the Ryder Cup is only once every two years, so you put everything into being a part of that, and then once you leave the whole team there, it's not going to feel so different because you go into what is normal for you again.

I think we all know what to do to get prepared for this week.

Q. Did you learn anything about your game, being such a pressure-packed environment of the Ryder Cup? Maybe something you felt or that you did that says that your game, not just in regular tournaments but in something that's so pressure packed like that or a major, that you can perform in?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: Well, I think for most of the guys that were there last week, it was a completely different environment, and especially for me. I've never experienced such a stressful and pressure situation as that.

I think there's certainly things in my game that I can improve, and that's one of the things that was so good from that week is learning, like, under the intense pressure, what part of the game needs improvement, and that's what I'm going to take with me from that week, especially you can look at it, there's some -- putting last week was obviously the most important thing with how the course was set up, and you could see that the European team stats-wise, especially the first two days, out-performed the U.S. Team in putting because tee to green it was very similar.

I think that's where for me, I probably underperformed a little bit, and there's some other things that I can look at and try and improve more.

Q. You mentioned there's some goals you would like to achieve this season. Can you share some of those?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: Yeah, I'm in a situation right now where I don't have my card secured, so that's obviously a big part of this year. Again, get myself back into top 50 in the world is a big thing for me as well.

I guess those are the two big things for the rest of the year now so that next year's schedule looks a bit better.

Q. Speaking of securing your card, you're currently 87th in the FedExCup standings. How much do you intend to play in the fall?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: As many tournaments as it takes. I don't have a certain amount. I've planned to play these two weeks and then Utah and Mexico.

Q. You're a five-time winner on the DP World Tour and a lot of fans are familiar with you on that side of the Atlantic. You've also set a lot of records in golf, first player who were born in the 2000s to win on the DP World Tour, you're the third youngest winner, you and your brother won back-to-back, first brothers to do that. How meaningful is it for you to set records like that and do you look back on that and sort of take pride in it?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: Yeah, I don't think I've ever thought about that. Obviously that back-to-back week for myself and Nicolai was very special. It's a cool thing to have that we can talk about for the rest of our lives. Hopefully we can do something similar again.

Yeah, I don't really -- it's never really been a thing for me trying to chase records. If that thing is going to happen, great. It's certainly cool to be part of it.

But I think the thing that me and Nicolai can look at is that back-to-back weeks was super special, not just for us but for the whole family.

Q. You earned your PGA TOUR card as one of the 10 players from the DP World Tour to be exempt for the '25 season. We're coming up on that happening again for the '26 season with 10 more players. What sort of advice would you give to those 10 players that gained that access to the PGA TOUR from the DP World Tour?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: I'd say that you've got to give yourself 110 percent. If you want to come over here and compete, you've got to be here full time. I think that was one of the things Nicolai said to me early on is that we're going to get a place over here so we don't have to travel back to Denmark every other week. That way, you practice and you play in the same environment or the same courses and everything that you're going to play on and you don't -- you skip all the jet lag and the long travel.

I think that for me would be, I guess, the advice is once you commit to come over here and play, do it 110 percent.

Q. How much have you gone back to Denmark this season, and when you do, what sort of things do you do there?

RASMUS HØJGAARD: I've probably been back in Denmark a handful of times. What have I done? Played golf, spent a lot of time with my dogs. Probably that's been my main thing.