THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Cam Davis into the interview room here at the BMW Championship. Cam was one of two players to move from outside the top 50 in the FedExCup standings at last week's FedExCup St. Jude Championship into the top 50 to qualify for the BMW Championship. If we can get an opening comment on your strong play last week and getting you into the field and looking forward to this week at Olympia Fields.
CAM DAVIS: I've played some really good golf over the last month or so actually, since I just missed out on the Open Championship. I've played some awesome golf. I've had a lot of stressful Sundays and managed to play really good golf in each of them and keep progressing forward.
Last week was another very satisfying 18 holes to finish off a good tournament, and yeah, now I'm really looking forward to having another week on the job this week.
Q. A few times now to the BMW Championship but haven't yet finished in the top 30 in the FedExCup standings. How much is that on your mind with an opportunity to play your way into East Lake next week?
CAM DAVIS: Yeah, up until this week, my big goal was just trying to get in the top 50, so now another opportunity for the TOUR Championship. We've got to kind of turn that around a little bit and focus ahead.
I would absolutely love to play East Lake. I haven't been there before, obviously.
Would be a great way to cap off a great run to finish the year, which has been really up-and-down. Finishing this way and potentially getting the furthest up the list that I've ever been is a pretty nice feeling and nice turnaround.
Q. What did you do at The Open? Were you the first alternate and were you on-site sort of hanging out? What was like that?
CAM DAVIS: Yeah, so when registration closed and everything was finalized, I was first reserve from that point onwards, and not a single person withdraw.
So I went there at the beginning of the week -- actually went to Scotland, played Scottish Open, kind of expecting to get a tee time at The Open, and the longer I was there the less likely it looked I was going to get a start, so I was there all Thursday from 5:30 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon sitting around waiting and hoping I was going to get an opportunity, and it never turned up.
That was a rough week, but I got some good practice in actually while I was there that has kicked forward and produced some good results afterwards.
Q. I was thinking about your playoff victory over Troy Merritt at the Rocket, and obviously you knew exactly what you had to do. Your back was sort of against the wall, and it was sort of do or die. The last couple of weeks have been your back up against the wall, sort of do-or-die. Do you feel like you're proving something to yourself, that you respond well in those types of situations?
CAM DAVIS: I've found myself in this sort of situation quite a few times now through my career, whether it was my first year getting on to the PGA TOUR and losing my card and having to play a great nine holes to finish the Korn Ferry finals event just to get my card back, to playing in a playoff.
I feel like when it is kind of a do-or-die situation, some of the inhibitor actually is taken off in my brain I feel like. I've got free reign; the only way I'm going to succeed is if I make a really committed swing and not just go for broke but definitely play without fear of making a mistake. I've found myself in a position where sure, I started the round just inside the number the last few weeks, but I needed to play a good round and shoot under par to stay there. At no point did I get safe. I still felt like I needed to make birdies, and even when I finished I thought, well, maybe it's enough but maybe I needed more birdies, and it was only after the round that I found out it was enough each time.
In that sort of headspace, yeah, I feel like I've played a lot of really good golf to keep my career pressing forward, and each time I do it's another little thing in the back of any mind the next time I'm in that situation, that yeah, I can play well and do well in that situation.
Q. Bit of an interesting season. Obviously the Presidents Cup to start it off was a very high point. You've had some high and low points. How would you characterize your season as you've gone through it?
CAM DAVIS: This year has probably been the most up-and-down season I've had. I had some really low points early this year. I was unwell for a couple of months it felt like, and I tried to play through sort of low energy and lack of focus and that led to like five or six missed cuts in a row, which is a really great way to start the year, no confidence whatsoever.
Yeah, to kind of come out of that with a couple of really good finishes in big events -- I mean, I had my best finish in a major this year. I had my best finish in THE PLAYERS Championship, as well, by a long way. So there were some high points.
But yeah, this year a lot of the time was kind of spent stressing about whether or not I was going to make it to the Playoffs or keep my card or how was it going to be at the end of the season.
Yeah, to kind of turn it around and really finish strong like this is really satisfying because I've pulled myself out of some pretty deep holes this year.
Q. Crazy hot week in Memphis last week. When you have days like that, what are you eating, drinking, doing on the course to keep yourself sustained through the day?
CAM DAVIS: There's so much drinking going on. I use the hydration powders and I'm filling a bottle up with one of those pretty much every single time and almost draining a bottle a hole.
I'm used to playing in some heat back home in Australia, but the humidity never quite reaches what it was last week in Memphis. That was brutal.
You've got to make sure you eat. I feel like one of the last things you want to do when it's that hot is eat food, but you've still got to keep some energy coming in, but the hydration part and keeping cool somehow, I was putting ice cubes in my hat and walking down the fairway with it just melting over my head to try and keep me cool. Little things like that just to try and get some sort of comfort.
But yeah, it was pretty hard to feel comfortable when it was like that.
Q. How often do you check your FedEx rank throughout the season?
CAM DAVIS: Honestly, I don't really check it. I always have a feeling, and every now and then I'll look at a leaderboard, and it pops up where you're standing, and then I'll know. But I don't actively go searching for it.
I think towards the end of the year you become more aware of it because there are more social media posts and more people talking about it, so you can't real avoid knowing, but I would say for the most part of the year I'm just going to every tournament trying to win and not really keeping too much of a track on where I stand and everything.
Q. Why don't you check it more?
CAM DAVIS: I feel like it's an extra element that up until the end of the year, I feel like it hurts more than helps knowing. Even if you win early in the year, you still need to play a lot of great golf to maintain your standing and keep improving, and I feel like anything extra on top of just the things you can control and the things you're trying to do week in and week out to play well is just not really needed as something to clutter up the mind. Obviously it's extremely important to be in the right position on that list, but in terms of thinking about it from day one each season, for me, I don't feel like it helps.
I've played with it on the back of my mind the first couple of seasons I was out here, and I don't feel like it really helped me at all. It just created more pressure each week.
I feel like I've gotten to the point where I'm starting to figure out what works and what doesn't when it comes to what I think about.
Q. You mentioned that you played here in the 2015 U.S. Amateur. What was that experience like for you that week? What do you recall of it? How different is the golf course now in your eyes after seeing it these last few days?
CAM DAVIS: All the holes are coming back to me. It was a while ago now. It's hard to believe that 2015 was eight years ago.
That was my first U.S. Amateur, I believe, and it was the first time I played a golf course set up like a U.S. Open on a proper major championship layout, and I just remember it being brutal.
It was definitely a lot drier and a lot firmer when we played that week. Obviously we've had some rain, so it's a little bit more lush and green this time around.
But in terms of the layout, every time I play a hole out here now for the first time, it comes back to me. Not necessarily how I played it last time, but just the visual of the hole, I can remember it. There's some easy-to-remember ones out here.
Yeah, I feel like I'm a much different player now, and I honestly don't actually remember how I played the golf course back then, other than it wasn't very good.
I think I've made a few improvements in my game since then now, so it'll be nice to attack this golf course again, eight years of experience later.
Q. With your finish now in the top 50 and being exempt for all the Signature Events, how will that affect you schedule wise, being able to possibly get back to Australia and play, and is that an intention for you given the situation you'll be in for '24?
CAM DAVIS: I mean, it's nice to have obviously the rest of this season, I can take a little bit more time off. It's always something that's been difficult to do throughout the years since I've been on the PGA TOUR. I haven't really had an off-season. There's no period of time to work on your body, work on your swing. It feels like you always have to be ready to compete pretty much throughout the entire year, then it just turns around again and starts up straight again, especially if you do go back to Australia and play the tournaments back home.
I always want to come back every year and play in Australia. I will do that again this year.
But in terms of being in the top 50 after this season and all of a sudden having all the designated events next year, it's just nice to have a bit of a plan going forward. Knowing that all these big tournaments are already a part of your schedule, it's a little bit easier to plan where you're going to be throughout the year.
That's going to be a nice change for me.
Q. When you think about your growth in your game from when you first got out on TOUR from the Korn Ferry TOUR, where do you think you've seen the most growth, physically, mentally?
CAM DAVIS: I've made a lot of changes in the right direction across the board really for me. Physically I've gotten a bit stronger. I've gotten a little bit more stable with my golf swing. Mentally I've made a lot of inroads there. I feel like I'm starting to figure out what works for me. I think every year I play I'm getting a little bit more understanding of the best things to think about and the best ways to react to each situation because I'm getting into each one more and more.
I feel like across the board since I was first out here, yeah, I've done a lot of hard work, and it's nice to see that continuing to progress me forward each year. I feel like I am getting better and better every year, which is a nice thing to think to yourself about it, especially at the end of each season, actually seeing some good results.
Yeah, I mean, also it's just nice having won a tournament, having been in contention a lot, having been in contention in a major now and THE PLAYERS, yeah, these are all little things I can think about that yes, next time in a situation I know what I did to get close. Now I can try and progress forward and make a win.
Staying positive and getting through some low points throughout each year and still coming out the other side a better golfer is something that I pride myself on and want to keep continuing forward, and I have done that since I turned pro.
Q. Is there anything from last week in particular that you're particularly proud of, either a situation or a mental approach or a decision? Kind of what comes to mind there?
CAM DAVIS: I think it was more the way I was able to just keep on doing what I was doing throughout the entire week and just keep my pedal to the metal for that last round even though there was more pressure on it.
Yeah, it was pretty simple. I felt like I had a lot of things that were working well in the swing, short game and putting, and just to keep doing that even though I was feeling more amped up, that was the satisfying part, playing the last couple of holes and keeping it in play, even with a couple of poor breaks, getting them up-and-down or hitting a nice lag putt or playing the last hole with water off the tee and next to the green and hitting a great drive down the middle of the fairway and then near the pin and having an easier putt and easier chance to make a par on the last to kind of solidify myself in this event.
All those are really good takeaways from last week, and the swing holds up under pressure nicely, so I'd like to see it do that again this week.
Q. What would you have been doing this week? Did you have any other plans had the schedule been open?
CAM DAVIS: I didn't make any plans for this week. I left it open to making it here this week, otherwise I would have been back home in Seattle. I was very happy to make some last-minute travel plans Sunday night.
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