Rocket Mortgage: PGA Pro’s Said It

By Roy J. Akers- www.skyviewsports.net

The Rocket Mortgage is playing their 6th edition at the Detroit Golf Club and with six different winners and some big names, will Rickie Fowler be the first repeat champion? The odds are usually long and the scores are low. The tournament starts Thursday and Wednesday pressers give player optimism that this will be their week.

Rocket Mortgage: PGA Pro’s Said It -1 Rickie Fowler

Rocket Mortgage: PGA Pro’s Said It – 2 Tom Kim

Tom Kim on his near win at the Travelers last week

TOM KIM: I would say, yeah, you know, obviously it was a really good week last week. We
did everything we could to try and get the win. Me and Scottie both beat the field by two,
which is I think really hard to do at this level, at the depth of field. And for us to — with one of
my closest friends to be able to kind of play for a trophy, it’s never happened for me before,
so to kind of share that experience with him was really cool.

Rocket Mortgage: PGA Pro’s Said I- 3 Chris Kirk

What do you like so much about coming to Detroit Golf Club and the Rocket Mortgage
Classic?
CHRIS KIRK: Yeah, definitely one of my favorite events of the year. I love the golf course,
just really great, classic, old-school, no tricks about it but right there in front of you. Just go
play some good golf and you’ll do all right. “

Rickie Fowler’s Complete Interview Transcripts

MODERATOR: Like to welcome the defending champion of the Rocket Mortgage Classic,
Rickie Fowler.
Rickie, thanks for joining us for a few minutes. A year removed from the win, if we can just
get a few thoughts on last year and getting the job done.
RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, obviously it was a nice week and a big relief after the few years
leading up to it. Looking forward to being back and picking up where we left off last year. I
haven’t played quite that well since then, so yeah, it would be nice to kind of get things going
again this week here at Rocket.
MODERATOR: Coming off a top-20 finish last week at the Travelers Championship, just a
few comments on what you’re feeling good about heading into the week as far as your game
goes.
RICKIE FOWLER: Started to score a little bit better last week, which is obviously kind of the
name of the game, putting up good numbers. Putted well last week. Yeah, kind of the first
week to kind of see some good progress and kind of build some momentum and some
confidence going into this week.
MODERATOR: You had an opportunity to meet Parker yesterday, big fan of yours. Just a
comment on the bigger picture of how much the tournament, the Tour and so forth does in
situations like that for you to get to meet people like Parker.
RICKIE FOWLER: Yeah, it was great. I met Parker down at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and
learned that he was from here, he was going to be out for the tournament. Rocket stepped
up and made sure that he was taken care of in coming out, being able to hang out yesterday
in the 313 and spent some time with him. Put him to work, made him carry the bag for three
holes. It’s just great. He seemed like he enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to him being able to
be around for a couple days this week. I think he’s got a tee time tomorrow so he’s going to
miss our afternoon round, completely understand that.
Yeah, like you said, bigger picture and understanding that what we get to do, it’s a game that
we love, it’s fun, but it’s a privilege and there’s a lot bigger things in life to just playing golf.
Q. You mentioned you haven’t played up to your own standards lately, but this
course is a place you know well having been here for each edition of the Rocket
2
Mortgage Classic. Coming off that win here last year, how much are you hoping that
this course can rejuvenate you, get you back toward your winning ways?
RICKIE FOWLER: I feel like it’s a fairly simple, old-school golf course and if you can just
get to the green, it becomes a bit of kind of who can make more putts throughout the week.
No, it’s fun, we don’t get to play very many old-school golf courses like this so it’s a treat for
a lot of guys who can appreciate kind of old-school golf course architecture. Like I said, it’s a
fun course to play and especially having good memories and coming off the win last year,
we’ll see if we can kind of reignite some stuff from then and get past the little bit of a slow
year it’s been and just go have some fun this week.
Q. Since you won here last year, your ball-striking has gone through some
inconsistent stretches. Is there anything in particular with your swing you’re working
on or that you can point to?
RICKIE FOWLER: Not necessarily. Working on basically a lot of the same things and
basically still trying to do the same thing as how to control the golf ball, hit it the right
distance and hit it as close as possible.
Done some golf ball testing throughout the end of last year, into this year. Not saying that’s a
part of it or anything. You’re seeing it throughout the bag where things haven’t been as good.
I think a big part of freeing myself up and allowing myself to play better golf starts on the
greens and helps when I’m making putts, which last week started to see that. Not that
ball-striking was good by any means, but I feel like when I’m putting at least up to my
standards or at least average, it kind of frees up the rest of the game.
So looking forward to hopefully leaning on the putter a little bit more going forward and
allowing the others to kind of fall into place and see the ball-striking stats come back up.
Q. I’m just wondering, for you in early rounds, what is your focus in a tournament
when you know scoring is going to be low?
RICKIE FOWLER: I mean, you’d love to get off to a good start and make some birdies and
feel like you’re kind of playing with house money and step on the gas and keep going.
The flip side is you bogey — make a couple bogeys going out and you feel like you’re starting
from behind the eight-ball and you’ve got to play catch-up.
I think a big thing is not trying to push it too much, not getting ahead of yourself, sticking kind
of to keeping it a simple game plan. Even like a place like this you can get out of position in
the rough, in the trees, in a bad place around the greens and you can make bogeys very
quickly, just as quickly as you can make birdies. A big part of it is the mental approach. Like I
said, I think a big thing is just not getting ahead of yourself and letting the round kind of
come to you.
Roy J. Akers is a multi-media reporter and covers several sports for www.skyviewsports.net