THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Denny McCarthy to the interview room here at the 2025 BMW Championship. It's kind of a home game for you, but you just said you're not staying at home this week. Explain that for us.
DENNY McCARTHY: It's just a little too far away. An hour with no traffic, and as we all know from this area, there's always traffic. It would just be a little bit too much time in the car. Staying a little closer to here, a little bit more of a normal feel for a tournament week.
But it'll still be very special to have a lot of friends and family out this week, and looking forward to the opportunity.
Q. This is your fourth consecutive start at the BMW Championship. How proud are you of making it here again this year, this season?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, I'm very proud of how I've fought this year. I wouldn't say I've played my best golf, but I'm proud of how I've fought to get to this point.
I've had some good flashes this year for sure. I've continued to get better, and my floor has raised, my ceiling has raised. I feel like I've done a good job of scraping out some weeks where I haven't had my best stuff. I might have made the cut on the number maybe by one and clawed out a good weekend and a decent finish. I feel like I pride myself in never giving up, and I did a good job of kind of hanging tough this year.
I've felt like I've played pretty solid the last few weeks, so I feel like I'm coming into here with some good form and obviously some good vibes being here in Maryland, and looking forward to having a home crowd behind me.
Q. Have you had much experience at Caves Valley? What's your thoughts on this golf course?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, I think it's going to be a good challenge this week. I've probably only played here three or four times, and the last time I played here was eight years ago, and obviously it's a totally new golf course. It's a new golf course for everyone. There's no advantages, it doesn't seem like anyone might have, from four years ago.
They definitely put PrecisionAire on the greens so they're trying to make them a little firmer, and it seems like they have a lot more slope in them than what they previously had, and there's a lot of humps and bumps. They lengthened it, they took out a couple par-5s and added a couple par-4s and stretched some of the par-3s out. It's going to be a good test.
I'm not a super long hitter. I'm long enough, but my 4-, 5-, 6-iron, maybe even into my 5-wood, are going to be tested some this week, so I've made sure I've gotten a few extra reps on the range with those clubs and on the course.
I feel like I can play well any week at any course. The game feels good, and looking forward to the challenge this week.
Q. No 7-wood?
DENNY McCARTHY: No 7-wood. My 5-wood goes about the distance of other guys' 7-woods, so similar.
Q. It would have taken a lot for you not to make it here starting at No. 39. Did you almost look at Memphis and this week as almost a two-week test to try to get to where you want to be?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, I felt like I had a free roll at it. It was really hot last week. I tend to struggle in severe heat. I sweat a lot, and it's a little bit of a process for me to get dry to hit a shot. So Memphis has always been a really tough week for me. I really like that golf course. It suits my game well.
But yeah, I didn't play that bad last week. I just didn't -- I had a couple bad holes that bit me throughout the week. Made a triple, which is unlike me. I typically don't make doubles and triples very often. I didn't really play that bad outside of a few holes.
I would have liked to have had a really good week last week and maybe had a bit more of a free roll this week, but it's still a good accomplishment for me to be here this year. Top 50 in a way is kind of like a new TOUR Championship. I wouldn't say that's my goal. My goal is still to make it to next week, but you still get a lot of things being in the top 50.
I think I've just got to go ahead and put my head down this week and play the best I can. I don't know what the numbers say. I'm going to try and go win the golf tournament, and if you hang around there, that usually will take care of it for me for next week.
Q. Good golf usually does the job, whether you win at 8-under or win at 30-under. Is there a need to make it as hard as possible?
DENNY McCARTHY: Are you saying this course in general or --
Q. In the whole kind of postseason as we go along, is it important to have the absolute par as your best friend?
DENNY McCARTHY: I don't know, you start flirting with a fine line if you try and make it as hard as possible. Then it can cross the line and get silly. We're talking about the best players in the world; you want to make it challenging but fair. You don't want to cross the line of making it silly just to make it really, really hard.
I think last week is a really good tournament golf course. The fairways were narrow. They had the Bermuda rough up. There was a penalty for missing the fairway for sure. They put new greens in, firm Bermuda greens. So coming out of the rough, it was hard to keep it on the green, so it put a premium on driving it straight. I thought last week was a great test for just a tournament golf course.
This week is going to be a good test, too. It's soft. It seems like they brought the fairways in. They tried to make the greens firmer with the PrecisionAire.
I think these are good tests. I don't think -- it's hard to make it impossible for us. Oakmont is pretty close to -- that's the typical U.S. Open type of golf course that everyone wants to see us suffer on all the time. It's hard to get that for us, but you also -- I'm sure people love seeing the top players in the world suffer.
But I like a golf course that's challenging but fair. Last week kind of reminds me of THE PLAYERS. To me that's a really good tournament golf course as well.
Q. You talked about playing this year and how you felt. Can you pinpoint some of those times this year where you felt like you were playing your best, and how can you channel those moments into this weekend?
DENNY McCARTHY: I think, yeah, I've gotten onto some really good feels the last few weeks. I've just kind of put my head down and tried to focus on what I need to do to get better over the last couple weeks, and I've done a really good job of that, kind of trying to stack days of feeling like I'm getting better. It's really hard to do.
Sometimes it's pretty easy to have a couple good days and then you have a day where you're like, what happened? I felt like I was trending in the right direction, and I kind of slipped off today.
But I feel like I've done a pretty good job of staying pretty consistent with my routine and the feels in my golf swing to feel like I'm continuing to stack a little bit better day after better day.
There's a couple times I played really well this year. Genesis, at Torrey Pines, I didn't think Torrey Pines was really a good golf course for me. I haven't played the Farmers in four or five years, and then when it got moved to Torrey, I was kind of like, oh, great, I haven't played here in forever, and it seems like I'm going to have to add Farmers this year because I had a good week there.
But yeah, that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier. I feel like when I do play well, I can play well at any type of golf course. Five years ago that place might not have suited me very well, but I've kind of become a different player in the last four or five years. I've gotten a lot better. Still feel like I can get a lot better.
Just kind of focusing on trying to get better, that's what drives me. I like working hard. I like the journey. I like the process to try and see how good I can get.
Q. What would it mean if you were to be able to qualify for the TOUR Championship at a course that's so close to where you grew up?
DENNY McCARTHY: I think it would be really special. I'm going to have a home crowd here this week. I'm going to have a lot of friends and family. To be able to do that in front of them would be incredible.
I've come to this event over the last three years, basically coming down to the final round of this event where if I play a really good round of golf, I qualify for the TOUR Championship, and I just quite haven't done that. I've played some solid rounds but just kind of missed out on The TOUR Championship the last three years.
It's been a little frustrating for sure just because I feel like I've had some good seasons, and it comes down to the last round. But it'll be nice when I have that chance on Sunday to have some support behind me, and maybe they can push me across the finish line.
Q. What does it say about your game that you're able to get to this tournament pretty consistently without having a win?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, I think kind of just alluding to what I was talking to earlier about I think my floor of my game has gotten a lot higher to where when I don't play my best golf, I can still make cuts and scratch out some good weeks. When my game gets off, I'm not missing the cuts by seven or eight. I'm still able to make cuts and find a way to have a decent week still.
Yeah, it's tough. It would be nice to have a win and get 500 points and jump a big way. I've kind of done it chunk by chunk by chunk here and there to get to, I don't know how many points I have, 1,000 something.
It would be nice to have some wins and make it a lot easier on myself to make it to East Lake, but I guess you could say I've kind of done it the hard way. I think I've become a much more consistent player week in and week out. I maybe haven't given myself the chances to contend to win tournaments as much as I would have liked to this year, but I've still had a lot of solid weeks, and I feel pretty good about how I've prepared over the last couple weeks coming into this week.
I'm looking forward to the challenge and opportunity again.
Q. Is there anything you've learned or can learn from seeing Cam Young break through and Tommy Fleetwood come so close again and still not get that win?
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, Cam is obviously a very talented player. I'd love to be able to drive it 360 on a string like him. I don't quite do that. He's obviously on a roll. At Wyndham a couple weeks ago that was cool to see.
It was only a matter of time for him to break through with -- he hits the ball a mile. His putting is very good this year. I think it was underrated in the past. I've played a couple rounds with him at home where I thought he was a good putter, but people were kind of knocking him on that, and he seemed to make everything at Wyndham, so it was good to see his game all come together in that one week and kind of lap everyone at Sedgefield.
What was the second part of your question?
Q. Tommy not getting across the line.
DENNY McCARTHY: Yeah, it's hard out here. It's not that easy. I don't know how many starts it took for Cam, but it seems like he could have won a couple tournaments here and there over the last few years. We're playing -- it's not that easy to go up against the Scottie Schefflers of the world, the Xander Schauffeles, these guys -- all these guys are really good at golf.
I'm trying to get my game closer to that level to where I can compete more often and contend more often. It's just playing against the best players in the world, it's not that easy to just show up and shoot 20-under every week.
Q. Kind of a local question. Your development as a junior player, did you do like an AJGA circuit nationally, or did you rely mostly on Maryland's program?
DENNY McCARTHY: I did, yeah. I played a lot of Maryland State Golf Association, Mid-Atlantic Golf Association pretty much all through my junior career, and I did play some AJGA, but it wasn't until late in my high school career basically. It was kind of my junior year of high school going into senior year of high school, I started playing some AJGA events. But I didn't play a ton.
I played a lot locally, and I was pretty successful in this area. I won a decent amount of tournaments and felt like it was the right thing to do to go test it on a national stage and see what I could do there, and I feel like I had some good events, and that gave me some good confidence knowing that I was competing with the Jordan Spieths and the Justin Thomases, the guys that were in my class. I was just kind of a little later to the party, I guess.
Q. Was it enough, Maryland and Mid-Atlantic?
DENNY McCARTHY: For me it was, yeah. I got up to play these tournaments like I do nowadays. I was really excited. I got nerves before I played Maryland amateurs, Maryland match play tournaments, junior tournaments. It was good preparation.
It got to the point where I felt like people would consider me as the favorite. I kind of had a target on my back. I felt a little pressure. It was fun to go out for me and kind of perform under that pressure.
It's no different than the pressure of trying to win a tournament out here or even trying to make a cut down the stretch. You feel similar nerves, and it comes down to executing shots, controlling your emotions, really locking in, seeing small targets and going.
Q. When you first went on to kind of a national stage as a junior, was that an eye-opener to you? Do you remember seeing anybody that was like, ooh, this guy has got something I don't?
DENNY McCARTHY: Not really. I think it was more confirmation that I was on a good path because when I took it to that national stage, I was competing right away and I was towards the top of a lot of those leaderboards.
I lost -- I had played a couple of U.S. Juniors previously, but I lost in a semifinals of a U.S. Junior. I won the Junior PGA the week after that. I came close in a couple AJGA events.
My first couple AJGAs in big tournaments, I was right there having chances to compete to win. It was good confirmation for me. It was a booster, look, I'm definitely on the right path. I'm at a good spot in my career; how do we keep getting better.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports