New York Golf Club 4, Atlanta Drive GC
THE MODERATOR: We welcome our season 1 TGL presented by SoFi champions, starting right where you left off. Take us through the final hole after your victory against New York Golf Club.
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, obviously New York did a great job there, getting back to all square with the last hole to go between Xander and I. We both played a beautiful hole, both had good opportunities to make birdie.
Listen, I've hit a couple putts tonight that I thought were in, came up just short. I just said, make sure I hit it hard enough. Chris and I looked at the putt. We both agreed with the way we thought it was breaking. About five feet out, it looked really good. I just hoped that it had enough speed to get there, and it went in.
Obviously very reminiscent to last season, that big putt we made to win the match sort of on the 14th hole, or take a lead.
Obviously I don't like New York Golf Club very much, and I just like breaking their hearts a little bit.
THE MODERATOR: Corey, just your overall impressions competing against Atlanta Drive Golf Club for the first time.
COREY CONNERS: Yeah, it was a blast. The atmosphere in there was electric. Really cool being a part of a team. Brought me back to my younger days playing hockey and other sports.
We were all playing for each other tonight, and that was a fun feeling. Just pretty speechless with "Big Game Billy" knocking that putt down, knowing I'd rather have him out there to make that one. It was just a blast, and really fortunate to have been able to play.
CHRIS GOTTERUP: Yeah, nothing but awesome. Definitely a little nerve-racking. Billy said in one of our interviews afterwards, the type of juice that you feel is what you feel coming down the stretch to win big tournaments, and to have that recreated playing for fun is cool and something that it's hard to recreate.
The atmosphere is amazing, and playing alongside Billy, he definitely made it a little bit more relaxed, kind of picking your brain and telling you what to expect.
Corey played great, hit some clutch shots when we needed it, and obviously the putt helps at the end, too.
A lot of fun, and really enjoyed it.
Q. I was wondering, was there a moment tonight where it hit you this might be a little bit different from a traditional PGA TOUR event?
COREY CONNERS: Yeah, for me, the first time walking out out there, the atmosphere, the noise, the people cheering was a unique feeling in this setting. Really cool and just electric.
Q. Chris, did you wish you were playing for New York Golf Club, being from the Met area? How did you feel about that?
CHRIS GOTTERUP: I went with my trainer this morning, I was wearing a Yankees hat and I took it off and switched it coming into today. I'm a New Jersey guy, so I don't hold any bad blood towards that.
No, I had a great time with Billy and them. Yeah, it was cool to meet the Cohen family before, too, and obviously they have a big sign in New York. It's all fun, and I think that's what cool about this team. You meet a lot of cool people.
But I like to be on the winning side, and with Billy and Corey tonight, it was a lot of fun.
Q. When did you guys find out you were going to participate today, and any chance to practice prior to warmups? Any chances to practice here to get used to the layout?
CHRIS GOTTERUP: I found out I think it was Christmas Day in the afternoon. Had a little bit of an inkling. I know Pat wasn't feeling great, and then Lucas had shoulder stuff.
There was a 50/50 chance and then got the word that I was in. Luckily I came over with Billy actually like a week or two ago and we practiced in here, so it wasn't my first time in here, but first time in front of all the people, and yeah, it was fun.
Q. Billy, looking after season 1, looking back, how does it feel being voted the unofficial fan favorite of season 1?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Unofficial (laughing). Listen, obviously it's cool. I don't do it to be voted the fan favorite. I do it to have fun. This is a lot of fun to be a part of.
I don't think I could put into words last year why I enjoyed it so much, but I realized it after the season. We've played professional golf for so long. I'm going into my 17th year on the PGA TOUR starting in a couple days, and you do it for so long, the grind of the PGA TOUR, the wear and tear, it's just Groundhog Day over and over, and you sort of lose that fire a little bit. You still have the desire to be great and accomplish your goals, but that fire isn't always burning as strong as it did when you first came out on TOUR.
But when you come into something like this that's completely different, something you couldn't imagine, it brings you to sort of like as a kid-like atmosphere, something brand new, something fun to be a part of, and to see it turn out, how successful it was in season 1, and we're going to have just as much or even better success in season 2, it brings that sort of enjoyment and fire to have a great time and enjoy what you're doing in life.
Q. Question for Billy. We got our first glimpse of a couple of the new radical hole designs today that kind of pushed the limits of reality a little bit. Is that something that you guys embraced? Did the players push for that? Do you want to see more of these kind of holes, or do you like a more traditional setting of the holes?
BILLY HORSCHEL: I think you've got to find balance, and I think in season 1 we wanted to make sure we didn't shock too many people right away, so we kept it very traditional, and what you saw was just us hitting our stock shots.
Now we've got some of these extreme holes, video game holes that people on social media have talked about, what we've talked about a little bit, sort of creating some really cool, unique holes that you can do in a technology sport like this.
You're going to have to hit golf shots. You're going to see us have to hit shots low, high draws, high cuts, and you saw that tonight, which you didn't see in season 1. So you're going to see more of that in season 2.
I think the fans at home will really enjoy it. I think everyone that watches will find some enjoyment out of it, whether it's the traditional holes or whether it's more of a radical-style hole created through TGL.
Q. Chris, you broke your driver on that first drive?
CHRIS GOTTERUP: No, I don't know when exactly I broke it, but we came back after we kind of practiced, and I hit a couple on there, and it was just going dead left, and I usually, if I miss one, I miss it 50 yards right, and then I looked at it and the top had like a little cut in the top of it.
Luckily Corey plays a similar driver to me, and they ran out to the trunk and he had one in the trunk, so I whipped it out and hit it in the bunker, and that was the only time I hit it tonight.
Looking back on it, the one par-5 that we played, I hit a 5-iron off the tee and then a 6-iron and a wedge. I would have never done that if I had my driver, and I ended up winning the hole so maybe it was on purpose.
Q. What did you hit the first hole?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Mini-driver. He hit mini-driver.
CHRIS GOTTERUP: Well, when I hit Corey's driver, I hit it in the bunker on the New York hole. That was the end of that.
Q. Billy, what were your thoughts on the new green complex design and the fact that none of the chips are into the grain anymore?
BILLY HORSCHEL: I think it makes it easier; there's no doubt about it. I think the into-the-grain design was a test, and there were some good things, but it made us look a little silly at times. I think it was just too hard to judge of how to hit the shot.
I think just to make it where it was a little bit more fair, just make it all downgrain, it was good, and I think you saw the benefit of that. You saw guys hit really quality chip shots. It doesn't make it any easier. Chris, the chip shot he hit over that bunker, that delicate one that he hit, was unbelievable.
Yeah, I like what they did and I like the change and I like the green being bigger. I think one thing that we wanted to see more putts made, and I think you saw that tonight.
Q. Billy, aside from being 20 feet longer, which is significant, how was that putt different tonight than the one in the final?
BILLY HORSCHEL: The one in the final won us a championship or at least got us into last hole to win a championship.
This gets us off to a good start. Obviously when you only play five matches, you need to get off to a good start and get a win under your belt, and we did that.
There was a reason why threw that hammer there, too, before we teed off. Points matter in this if there's a tie, and Patrick coaching us from the owner's suite box said we needed to throw the hammer, so we threw the hammer and we won by two.
Q. As far as the roll and all, it kind of seemed similar as far as the curve and all that.
BILLY HORSCHEL: Obviously it went down the hill and it went right and then it went down left. I'm going to be honest with you, I thought I missed it because I thought it got too far left, and I thought it was going to continue to break left, and it sort of straightened up and actually broke a little bit back to the right.
Listen, I said we read it pretty good. We did. We knew it was going to go in, but the last five feet we read completely wrong, and I'm happy we did.
Q. Corey, for you, the simulator season is probably longer than the regular season of golf in Canada. How popular is TGL up there? It's been very popular down here, but I'm curious up there because now you're involved.
COREY CONNERS: Yeah, really popular. I think there's probably a few more fans from Canada who tuned in this afternoon.
Simulator golf is very popular in Canada. We're buried in snow for six months of the year so there's no option to play outside. A lot of people in the town, it's one of the more popular spots where you can hit balls in the sim and they've got some leagues and stuff, and that's very common all across Canada. I think people are very familiar with playing themselves, and I know a lot of people are really excited about watching the TGL and the cool new product that it is.
BILLY HORSCHEL: I think you're going to see a lot of people walking around in Toronto, Canada, with an Atlanta Drive hat and not know why, and it's because of Corey.
Q. Billy, I noticed you were practicing some putts during the intermission. Was there anything like the last putt that you hit? Did you hit a similar to that while you were practicing?
BILLY HORSCHEL: No, I wasn't expecting it to be up on that hill. I was practicing where Xander hit that shot and somewhere off that hill.
Listen, that 6-iron I was juiced up. I thought I had to hit it a little harder than I normally do to get a little extra yardage out of it, and I did and it went really far. I really didn't want that putt.
No, I wasn't practicing that putt for sure. Like I said, we did a good job of reading the putt 75 percent correctly, and the last 25 percent we took the luck involved and we won.
Q. Billy, kind of a broader question. I remember reading your Players Tribune article a few days ago. At the end you were talking about how growing the game is kind of a cliche phrase or a tired phrase, but if we look at TGL it's a way to remind people what we love about the sport. How do you think TGL has done a good job in doing that so far?
BILLY HORSCHEL: Yeah, I've never liked that old adage of "grow the game." I think it gets thrown around too much.
I'm a big believer in -- for me and I think for a lot of the guys up here, it's giving back to the game. It's given us so much, and we're so lucky to be able to play it in so many different forms, TGL, PGA TOUR, and listen, we are financially rewarded way beyond any means we could ever imagine as a kid.
But for me, I love the game. I think it's the greatest sport in the world. I've talked about it for many years now. Just getting people involved, I think they'll understand why it's special, not just that -- there's a reason for it on the golf side of hitting golf shots and everything, but it's more or less the people you meet. You never know the friends you're going to meet. You never know the friends you're going to meet. You never know who you can come across, who can have an influence in your life and maybe change your life and give you an opportunity in business, in something else outside business, whatever it may be that can open up a new door.
The more we can get people to experience the game of golf in so many different forms because a lot of people just see it as going out to the range or the PGA TOUR, that's the way you've got to experience it.
There's so many more forms that have come over the last handful of years: TGL, putt-putt, PuttShack or whatever it's called. You've got TGL now, which I think is doing a great job because as Corey said, being up north, simulators are a big thing up there during the winter months. That's how they take in the game. That's how they consume the game.
Having this be created with Mike McCarley and everybody, I think it's just going to open up more doors and bring more people into the game and see why it's special. I think once those people get in the door, once they find their niche of why they want to be in golf and what makes it special for them, I do believe you're going to continue to see growth in our sport, and I don't care whether they play, go out to the golf course or play PGA National or whether they come and go to their local simulator and consume it. That's good enough for me. As long as they're involved in the game, I think that's all I can ask for.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports