Q. Fond memories of this place. Did it just sort of click back in for you? Does that ever happen?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Every time I drive through the gate here, I just fall in love with this place. And I'm comfortable around here. I know I can play well here.
And you just relax. I enjoy being here. I've been over here a few times since I won, not for the tournament. And just come out here and relax and have fun and soak it all in and enjoy it.
Q. When was the last time you came here just to come and hang out?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: During the -- it was the weekend before the Korn Ferry event at Ohio State last year. I just popped over here to hit balls and get away and relive some memories, try to get some stuff going again.
Q. You won here six years ago. Can you kind of describe your journey since then? I know you've had some injuries.
WILLIAM MCGIRT: It's been hard. Fighting two hip surgeries, missing two years. It took me a while to get my feet back under me, get the competitive juices flowing again.
I felt the whole time that I've been playing a lot better than what I've been scoring and finally saw some results today. I've had a couple of good rounds here and there but haven't been able to sustain it. So hopefully this week will change and we can keep it going.
Q. How did winning this change your life?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Well, the biggest thing was the three-year exemption knowing you had job security for three years.
The money was nice, but I'd almost given it back for three years of knowing that I wasn't battling to keep my card.
And unfortunately, messed my hip up and had to have that fixed and was out for a while. But you take away confidence that you can do it. And I look back at the guys that were on the leaderboard that day, and I mean it was a who's who of the top 20 players in the world.
To come out on top of them, it's definitely a shot in the rear end for me.
Q. What was the last -- the second of the two surgeries, what was that?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: The second one was like August 26th, I believe, of 2019. The first one was September 5th of 2018.
Q. So you've been trying to battle back from that for quite a while?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Yeah.
Q. And you're on a medical, right?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Yes.
Q. How many more starts do you get?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Five after this week. And, honestly, within the last probably six weeks, I finally feel like I have the strength and the stability in my hip to be able to do what I wanted to do.
I knew my body wasn't ready to come back. And the sham that insurance is, disability insurance, they cut you off because all they're doing is reading a manual saying this is the average time.
And I argued with them. I said you do understand what the definition of an average is, correct? Needless to say, I didn't win that argument.
But I finally feel like my body is healthy enough and strong enough to do this on a week-to-week basis.
Q. The hip injury, what did it do to your golf swing or prevent you from being able to do?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: I couldn't turn. Biggest thing is I couldn't turn. If I ever had a ball below my feet or downhill lie, I couldn't rotate into my left side. I was basically reverse pivot and trying to create rotation, because when I started my follow-through, when I started rotating into my left side, I had bone on bone. And literally, when they put me out to do the surgery, under anesthesia they recheck all your range of motion, and I had zero degrees of rotation, internal rotation, under anesthesia.
So, I mean, I was doing everything I could to get to my left side. But my bones in my hip were not going to let me do it.
And it's hard. The worst part was throughout the whole thing for about four months, I couldn't sleep. Every time I would move at night, it would wake me up. And that's when I knew, it's time to do something.
Q. Did you have it replaced?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: No.
Q. What did they do?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: FAI correction. So I had femoroacetabular impingement.
Q. Say that again.
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Good luck spelling that. And a torn labrum the first time. And also had a bone fragment removed. The first time the fragment was about the size of a jelly bean. The second time I didn't have the labrum done, but I had a bunch of scar tissue removed. I had the same two bones shaved down again, and I had a bigger bone fragment that was, I think, about the size of a big peanut M&M he said, just floating around in there.
And it makes it fun when you're trying to do this.
Q. Were there times you wondered whether you'd ever play again, at least competitively?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: For sure. Especially having to go back in the second time. I was gung ho, ready to come back after the first one, and I hadn't gone seven days in a row of practice yet. So I went down to Congaree and spent four days down there. And I was fine the first two. The third day I was pretty good. The fourth day I woke up and I could not move. It felt worse than it did before the first surgery, and I threw my stuff in the car, drove back home and I told my wife, I'm going to Nashville. I jumped in the car right then.
Put on a T-shirt and pair of gym shorts, drove to Nashville, called them, I'm on the way, something's not right. And I walked in and it was so swollen that standing there in a pair of gym shorts and T-shirt, I walked in and they looked at me and said, What have you done? I said I don't know. But hopefully it will continue to get stronger and the stability is a big thing.
When you're standing there wondering is this the one when it's going to pop? Because I can make certain motions and get it to pop. But fortunately it's not painful.
I think it's something I'll have to deal with the rest of my life. I told him if I have another surgery, we're not doing stitches again. I said I just want a full length zipper. I've had the knee done twice, hip done twice, just make it easy on yourself next time.
Q. You gave an interview a few days ago to the Robesonian, and you said I'm at peace with this --
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Completely.
Q. -- if I continue or not. Has that -- obviously the medical issues lend towards this attitude as well as making you see that point in life?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: In a way. I'm two and a half weeks away from 43 years old. I've got a nine- and six-year-old, and my nine-year-old is so in love with golf. If you guys need to know any stats about any player, ask him because he knows my stats inside and out.
Q. Well of anybody's stats, hopefully he knows your best.
WILLIAM MCGIRT: It's funny. He saw the tee time coming out on Tuesday, and he was so excited because he knew Charles's son Chase was going to be out so he could get to walk with him, they both love golf. He said, Daddy I love Matt Wolff, do you think I can meet him? I said sure, bud.
Well, the great thing is that he's getting to be the age where he understands what I do for a living. But he's so into golf right now. Every day he would come home from school. He would knock his homework out. All right, dad, I'm ready to go to the golf course. We'd go to the golf course until dark.
And he's the only little kid I've ever seen that will go spend hours chipping and putting. I think he would rather chip and putt than go hit drivers, which is the exact opposite of every kid I've ever met.
But I enjoy playing golf so much with him, and I enjoy spending so much time at home with my family. I told my wife, I said, it was a blessing and a curse being home for two years.
I enjoyed the time with the family. I felt like we got much closer as a family. I was home for so many milestones. I got to teach him how to ride a bike without training wheels. Got to teach my daughter to ride a bike without training wheels. Home for first teeth falling out, all that stuff. Dance recitals.
Q. Especially having a schedule like you do, being on the road, that is probably pretty cool.
WILLIAM MCGIRT: She thinks I'm crazy when I tell her the hardest weeks for me is the weeks they don't travel. You're crazy, you ought to be sleeping all the time. I don't sleep very well because I want to talk to my kids and how their day was and they're always nonstop. I just enjoy being around them. If I play well enough in these last six events to keep my card, great.
If I play well enough to get in the Korn Ferry finals and I get my card, great. If I don't, I'm perfectly fine going home spending the rest of my time with them. I'll find something to do for a few years, but I'll enjoy my time with them. There's a lot more things that are more important than this stupid game we play.
And I've really had a change of heart with all of that. I used to live and die by every shot and you drive yourself crazy. And now it's like so what. When we get done with this, he's going to want to go somewhere hit balls, find a set of clubs because daddy was too dumb to grab his.
But there's so many more things that I enjoy more than playing out here. It's more of a way for me to be able to do the fun stuff that I want to do than anything else right now.
Q. It would seem like -- you're almost 43. What you just said, you would be like a perfect candidate for LIV golf. Where do you stand on that?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: I've heard nothing from them.
Q. Will you investigate it if you just said okay, I can't play out here anymore and I want to keep playing golf?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Here's the thing, here's the way I look at it. It's my job to provide for my family. And if you guys were offered a job working for another publication for way more money, nobody's going to blame you for going.
So why are guys getting skewered for going. I don't see the point or necessity for skewering those guys. The TOUR has history, has corporate America behind it. The TOUR is a massive operation that hopefully will be around forever. There's so many unknowns with LIV. If I were going to get involved, I would tell them I want all my money up front because you don't know.
Trust me, I played a mini tour one year that was too good to be true. We paid our membership fee the next year. Guess what, they still owed me $7,500.
Q. Which tour?
WILLIAM MCGIRT: U.S. Pro Golf Tour. That was about the biggest sham going. And it was great the first year. I made -- God I probably made close to a hundred grand out there that, which was great for a mini tour, but you're not going to sustain the model they had.
And I don't hold it against anybody for going and don't hold it against anybody for staying. It is what it is.
Q. Sounds like what you have is perspective.
WILLIAM MCGIRT: Yeah, I mean, look, any one of us could hit a shot tomorrow out of the rough and our career could be over. We could get in a car wreck` going back to the hotel and our career could be over. Look at what happened to Bud Cauley couple of years ago. I don't think Bud's played since. I don't know how he's doing, I haven't heard.
When you sit down and think about it, if you have an opportunity like that to take care of your family for years to come, you feel like you have to take it.
I know all the things that everybody is skewering guys with the Saudis not being stand-up people, but it is what it is.
Q. Or scary, as Phil said. Scary.
WILLIAM MCGIRT: I'd say that was pretty poor presentation on his part. I mean, it is what it is. That's all I can say.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports