JOHN BUSH: We'd like to welcome Pat Perez into the interview room here at the Greenbrier Classic after a 6-under par 64. Had seven birdies on the card, one bogey.
Pat, just get your opening comments on a good day.
PAT PEREZ: Um, you know, it was nice. I put a lot of work in last weekend and the beginning of this week trying to get back to, you know, playing well again.
You know, so far it's paid off today.
JOHN BUSH: 12 of 14 fairways hit. Good ball-striking day. Take us through a couple of the birdies coming down the stretch. 5-under par 31 on the back. Start us off on No. 10.
PAT PEREZ: 10, I hit a great drive to about two feet there and made birdie.
I made an unbelievable up-and-down on 11 from a buried lie in a bunker.
12, hit 3-wood to the middle of the green. Almost made it for eagle. Tapped-in for birdie.
14, I hit it to about four feet and made that.
16, hit it to about ten feet; made that.
17, I hit it in the front bunker in two and got up-and-down from about ten feet.
18, I had an unbelievable up-and-down from along the left.
So it was just one of those days where other than No. 2 where I hooked it left and I didn't really have a shot, but I kind of made a good 5.
You know, it was just one of those days where things are going right.
JOHN BUSH: Questions.
Q. Were there any holes on the course that suited you going in and kind of matched your perception?
PAT PEREZ: You know, the whole course pretty much suits my eye. The layout is pretty straightforward. You know, they can make the pins pretty tricky if they want to. Problem is the grass is getting chewed up around the holes, so it's getting harder to make putts.
But, you know, all the holes, for the most part, pretty much suit my eye. Which is great. I've never really had 18 holes that really fit my eye.
So, you know, that could be another part of it, too. I didn't really see anything last week in Toronto. I didn't see one shot out there. But, you know, I wasn't hitting it as good either.
But even still, there's just some courses I get on and I don't see it.
Q. How does to change going from one round too another in your mind when you see players shoot like you did today and then struggle in the second round? What's the mindset just trying to maintain your sense?
PAT PEREZ: You know, this is gonna be the kind of course where you have to really get -- I mean, it's gonna be 20-under par that wins this tournament, so you got to get into that mindset. I got into this mindset at Hope last year when I won. I knew it was gonna be really low.
It's not like, Okay, I'm 6 now. If I can stay there for four days it'll be great, like an Open. It's not that at all. Tomorrow I need to come out and shoot another 6 if I can.
But I really try to stay in the moment, you know, where I don't think about an outcome. I've tried to just play, you know, what does this hole ask of me? Just kind of see what happens. We'll hit it, hit it and chase it, and we'll hit it again. If we can make the putt, we'll make the putt.
But it's just about building confidence through every day. You know, this is obviously confidence builder for me now. Tomorrow just gonna try and keep riding the same wave and see what happens.
Q. Does it make sense that a course like this would be good for you at this point in your season?
PAT PEREZ: Yeah, this could give me a lot of confidence for the next three months coming up. Plus, I need a good week to get into the PGA. I looked at it finally, and I can't believe I'm that far out of the list because I haven't missed one yet.
I'm shocked that I'm that far back. I'm playing worse than I thought. I need a good week to get into that. I would love to go to Whistling Straits and play.
Q. You have been playing well. Did you see a round like this coming?
PAT PEREZ: Yeah, if I could make some putts, I knew this was gonna be -- I'm not really shocked at all, because, you know, the course isn't all that soft. There's a lot of short holes. Whoever gets the wedge game together is gonna shoot something low.
There's only a few holes where you really got to drive it. You know, 6 is a good driving hole. You know, 13 you got to hit a good one. There's just really not a lot of -- you know, unless the wind really got blowing it would be really tough.
Yeah, I saw this coming, because I put a lot work in the last three days getting my swing back on track. I got rid of the hook. I'm hitting it straighter now. I finally got the putter where I can see the line and I can see them actually going instead of hitting the putt and tapping in and moving on.
There will be some low scores today and tomorrow. We'll see what they do on the weekend with it.
Q. What went into your decision-making process to come play this week here at Greenbrier?
PAT PEREZ: Well, one, the purse. I was gonna go to Turning Stone because I thought that was still 6. It's not.
I heard great things about this place. The guy, Jim Justice, I guess he just went crazy and did everything to it. He put all his effort and time and money into it. It's really a phenomenal place.
The only problem was getting in and out of here. The charter also made it easier coming from Toronto. Getting out of here is gonna be a nightmare to go home, getting back to Phoenix.
They said the course was great, and it's a big purses. Really, I need to play because I also need a good week if get into the PGA. It was kind of a no-brainer for me to come either way.
Try and get a good week in and see if I can get into the PGA and see what happens. Basically just looking for -- I need a good week. Not for status-wise or anything. I'd like to have a good week and move of the FedEx list and all that stuff.
JOHN BUSH: Jerry, last one.
Q. Talk about the weekend. Given the scores we're seeing so far, is there anything they can do to make the course yield higher scores on the weekend?
PAT PEREZ: No, unless they put them right on the sides of a mountain like this. Nothing they can do, because the rough isn't that long. I thought the rough would be longer. Even though they took out the immediate cuts, the rough just isn't that long.
The greens are soft. They were really hoping to get this course fast and firm and it's just not. The rain, it felt like to rained last night. I don't know if it did. But the rain we had yesterday morning was pretty heavy, so that really softened it.
This course would be a hell of a lot different if it was fast and firm. Coming out of the rough, the rough is just long enough to catch the flyers. So if the greens were fast and firm, you wouldn't be able to hold 'em.
Mike Hartford, long-time caddy of Pat Perez, was recently home in San Diego for an off-week and sat down with PatPerezGolf.com to talk about the 2010 PGA Tour season. He followed up with some of his thoughts and fired over this blog post a few days back. Check it out:
"Mike Hartford checking in here for PatPerezGolf.com. Another season is about halfway done and it's been another good year thus far. A lot more golf left to be played and I believe Pat has a few good runs in him as his game is where it needs to be right now. But before getting into that, let's recap the last few months in what is our ninth season out here.
After withdrawing in New Orleans, Pat headed to Charlotte over the weekend to start working some aspects of his game out. He missed the cut at Quail Hollow by two strokes (76-71), but he started working through some things there and was satisfied where things were headed.
From there, we headed down to Sawgrass where Pat got in that much-talked about practice round with Tiger. Had some big groups out there that week and people were talking about Pat being Tiger's new 'swing coach' as he was helping him on the range. In all reality, he was just giving Tiger feedback regarding the position of the club. It's something you obviously can't see when you're out there alone (or unless someone is shooting video), so Pat helped as an extra set of eyes. Feedback, not necessarily technique.
Pat played well at Sawgrass but missed the cut by one (71-72), getting knocked out by John Merrick, who birdied 18 on Friday and actually knocked fourteen other guys out, as well. Rare that you see something like that happen, so many guys right on the cut line like that. We were all watching in the clubhouse and when John dropped that 13-footer ... let's just say there were a lot of frustrated guys who weren't going to see the weekend.
Three missed cuts in a row when Pat was arguably playing some pretty good golf. You really hate to see that happen. Especially at big events like that. Pat has done well at The PLAYERS in the past and missing the cut by one, in that fashion, can be very aggravating. He'd been hitting it well, but it was one of those runs where you're just having a bad hole at the wrong time.
Nine years into this, Pat does a much better job bouncing back from a bad hole, but when you're missing a cut by one or two strokes, that really makes a big difference. Still, the fact that he's learned to not bring that bad shot with him into the next hole - it shows his overall growth as a player. I think much of that comes from personal growth, as well as watching and emulating other players.
Fred Couples. Ernie Els. Retief Goosen. All three of those guys are great at taking the game in stride and not letting a bad hole turn into a bad round. It's one of the hardest parts of the game, but if you're going to succeed out here you absolutely have to master it. Besides watching other players, we've had some of the Bob Rotella CDs playing in the courtesy car to and from events. Some definite pearls of wisdom worth checking out there for players of all levels.
Things finally got cranking again in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, which is now on a new, Greg Norman-designed course. Being a great driver of the ball, The Shark designed a course that puts a premium on driving. Lots of trouble on both sides of the fairway, so you had to make sure you were hitting fairways consistently, which Pat did that week en route to a T22nd finish.
After a few missed cuts and then a top 25 finish (as well as a second round 66), people wonder how you're missing fairways one week and you're hitting so many the next. You really have to take into consideration what a game of millimeters golf is. These guys out here, their club head speed is upwards of 120 mph. If you're off as little as one degree, you're going to veer off line 10 or 15 yards easily. There's literally a mathematical equation for all this.
Other times you're missing a little to the right and that might lead you to start overcompensating, coming over the top and hitting left. Very easy to have your confidence quickly rattled in situations like these. Adam Scott, who went on to win the event this year, had recently struggled with hitting fairways but that week he pulled it all together and played some solid golf.
From there a good finish at the Byron Nelson (T32nd) and two great rounds (a Friday 66 and Sunday 67) and a T10th finish at Colonial, where Pat fired a 63 on "moving day". T19th at the Memorial and then about a month off before coming back to the AT&T National (T62nd) and the recent John Deere Classic (T39th).
Six straight cuts after missing five of the previous six, Pat's definitely feeling good going into these late summer months.
Comparing this year to last year, you're really talking about just a couple shots difference, again proving how difficult this game is. Take away the win at the Bob Hope and Pat is pretty much on par with his accomplishments last season.
It really is about having those big weeks and capitalizing. When you're hovering in that top ten going into the weekend or on Saturday, you really have to make your move as that has such a huge impact on your bottom line for the season.
There's so much talk about Saturday being "moving day" but in all reality, each day is as important as the next out here. The courses are obviously set up tougher on the weekend, so scoring averages do go up, but it's the same for everybody. The real key is finding the ability to keep it going once you have some momentum. Keep the pedal on the floor.
There are times when Pat really does that - stringing together a few early birdies and then not letting up, as opposed to giving a few back real quick. The key comes back to avoiding the bad shot because if you make one, you're going to pay.
Another thing to remember with Pat is that he's still working on his "new" swing. I think that's the biggest misconception a lot of fans outside the ropes don't necessarily get. You take a guy like Pat and he had the same swing for over two decades. Now in a matter of two years, he's working to correct that - but old habits are going to die hard - which is the case for anyone out here tweaking their technique.
His coach Mr. A (Mike Abbott) is still out here on a consistent basis, helping Pat not be as steep. Pat has a tendency to come over the top to get to the ball and Mr. A has him working to get his swing much flatter. Still, he'll occasionally come over the top, which can produce a pull hook and is why you might see a scorecard with birdie, birdie, par, double bogey at any given time. To break a twenty-year old habit can take years, but Pat is working tirelessly to consistently flatten his swing.
Some good tournaments coming up the next few months and I believe Pat could do well on any upcoming course. He has momentum right now with the six made cuts (up until this last weekend at St. Georges.) This week we're in West Virginia for Greenbrier and the famous Old White Course and I believe we're off next week.
Regarding the rest of the year, sky's the limit. Pat is currently 73rd in FedExCup points and 102nd on the money list. I'm never 100% sure of Pat's schedule, but with the FedEx Playoffs around the corner (as well as the PGA Championship before that), we need a good week here in West Virginia and might have to play the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro. FedExCup action starts late August, so these next few weeks are critical.
Time to get busy for this coming week but I'll check back in as soon as possible."
