July 22, 2014
An Interview With:
GRAEME DE LAET
THE MODERATOR: Welcome, Graeme
de Laet, to the media center, the highest ranked
Canadian in the Official World Golf Rankings, and
it's always a pleasure to have you here playing for
the national championship, and I'm sure it means a
lot to you. Maybe start off by telling us what it
means to be playing for your national Open.
GRAEME DE LAET: Exactly. This is a
tournament that I'm always excited about at the
start of the year, and it's great, Montreal is one of
my favorite Canadian cities. It's good to be back
here, and the Canadian Open is just a special
event for me, so I'm excited about the week.
Q. I know you have some special
memories from Montreal, as well. I think it was
five years ago this year you won on what was
then the Canadian Tour, now PGA TOUR
Canada. Maybe some good vibes for you this
week from that win?
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, hopefully. I
mean, I was just down the road on the island here,
so yeah, I mean, in order to win a golf tournament
you have to play well no matter where it is or what
level it is, but hopefully this is a week -- my game
feels a lot closer than it probably looks compared
to my results, and you always know that deep
down when you're playing well, and hopefully I can
just kind of clean it up a little bit and this can be the
breakout week.
Q. When you won in Montreal on the
Canada Tour, what year was that?
GRAEME DE LAET: 2008.
Q. If I remember correctly, that was a
year where money was tight, where you hadn't
played particularly well heading into that, and
was it here that sort of turned things around
because things sort of spiraled from there?
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, 100 percent.
This was kind of the jump start that I needed back
then. Times were tight financially. I wasn't playing
with much confidence at all, and I took some time
off before that week, and I knew that I had to finish
that season strong or I wasn't going to have a job,
and I didn't know exactly what I was going to do.
But I was able to kind of put it together that week. I
was fortunate enough to win in a playoff, and from
there everything just kind of snowballed and I grew
some confidence, and I guess I was able to -- I
guess it was the next year I was able to get my
PGA TOUR card, and it was a big step in my
career for sure to win here.
Q. When you say money was tight, how
tight are we talking about?
GRAEME DE LAET:
I mean, a few
thousands probably at the most is all I had in the
bank account, and my sponsorship had kind of
dried up, so it was kind of all or nothing at that
time.
Q. You talked about that win in Canada
sort of jump starting the rest of your career.
What about last year's Presidents Cup? That
had to give you quite a bit of a boost, as well,
because you played very well in that. Your
recognition must have gone up as you go
around playing the PGA TOUR this year.
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, that was a
great week. Obviously being part of that team was
phenomenal, and being able to play well was just
kind of icing on the cake. It did give me a lot of
confidence. I got some real kind words from Nicky
Price, who's a guy who I really, really respect now
even more than I did before because he's a great
guy as well as a great player. Mr. Nicklaus gave
me some nice, kind words, as well, that week, and
I was able to kind of parlay that into some good
play throughout last fall over in Asia and then at
the start of the year.
The last couple months has been a little bit
difficult. I haven't really been getting much out of
my golf game, but that being said, I've been
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through lows before, and I've always seemed to be
able to dig myself out of them.
And like I said, I really feel like I'm playing
a lot better now than my score indicates. I got a
little bit of a tough draw there last week and I
played 7-over for nine holes. The other 27 I played
at 4-under on the tough side of the draw. You
know, my game -- I feel pretty good inside about
how I'm playing.
Q. In this country a goal scored in
hockey will tell you there's such a fine line
between being able to put the puck in the net
and not being able to buy one. How does that
equate to golf? When you are in the zone and
when the ball is being struck properly and the
putts are dropping and so on, how fine a line is
it between that happening and just not being
able to get it done on the day?
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, sometimes it's
just seeing the lines and that comes with a lot of
confidence, and being able to really trust it, both
with ball-striking and around the greens. It's like
the chicken or the egg; you can't play well without
confidence, but you can't really gain confidence
without playing well.
Like I said, every player knows you can
sometimes have a decent finish but you don't really
feel great about your game but you were able to
get it around somehow, and other times you feel
like you played really well and you might have had
a couple little hiccups here and there or an unlucky
break or whatever it may be, and all of a sudden
you miss the cut and you're playing well.
It's just kind of getting a little bit of
confidence rolling, and I think one good round of
golf could do that for me right now and just seeing
a few more putts roll in and just kind of take ing it
from there, but I'm excited about the week, and like
I said, I feel like I'm playing pretty well.
Q.
How well suited is Royal to your
game?
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, I love the golf
course. It's a good, traditional layout, everything is
pretty much right in front of you. There's nothing
quirky or tricky about it. It's in great shape, and I
think if you can drive it well out here, you can have
a lot of cracks at birdie. If you're missing fairways
and hitting in some of the fairway bunkers, it's
going to be a little bit more difficult.
I think that's one of the keys around here is
to be hitting the ball in the fairway, and the fairways
are pretty generous and they're pure, and you can
kind of take on some pins if you're hitting a
mid-iron out of the fairways.
Q. Shaw put up some money for a
couple of guys this week, they've got the hat;
you've got the Shaw hat on. How important do
you think that financing is for young pros?
You talked about how times were tough for you
in '09. How important is the ability to sort of
have money when you're just kind of starting
out chasing this?
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, I mean, well,
Shaw has been a great partner. This is the first
year hopefully of many with them. We're on board
on the same things kind of across the board. But
when it comes to money, I mean, that's one of the
most difficult things for a struggling or early
professional player is not having to play for checks
and to see money going into your account so you
can play the next week. That's really one of the
most difficult things of playing mini-tours or lower
level tours of golf is that there's just so much
added pressure on trying to make money so you
can keep your head afloat.
For Shaw and for other big companies to
be able to step up and support some of our young
Canadians, I think it's great.
Q. Secondly, there will be a lot made of
it's been 60 years since Pat Fletcher's win. I
think Mike Weir once said for a Canadian to win
here this week is sort of like lightning in a
bottle. It's asking a lot. You've got a lot of
demands on your time and so forth. Is there
added pressure when you come here to
perform well or do you put more pressure on
yourself to perform well?
GRAEME DE LAET: Yeah, I think -- the
fans across Canada, I know that no matter how we
play, they're still going to be fans of us and they're
going to cheer us on. I don't think we're going to
let anyone down by not winning or not playing our
best golf, but all we can do is really try our best,
and I guarantee every single Canadian in the field
is going to give it all that they have this week, and
that's really all that you can expect or ask of them.
I think that we have as strong of a group of
Canadian players here this year as we've had, and
I think this is my sixth or seventh Canadian Open
that I can remember. Obviously Mike is starting to
show some form. David is playing -- he's had a
nice, solid year. And with Hadwin and Sloan with a
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couple of wins on the Web.com TOUR, I think the
future is bright, and hopefully it's an exciting week
and we can make some noise on the weekend.
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