Press conference transcript - Henrik Stenson

Transcript from press conference conducted by The Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club: 

MODERATOR:  Good morning, everyone.  It is a pleasure to welcome Henrik Stenson, who joins us for his ninth Masters appearance.

            Henrik is coming off an unforgettable 2013 season.  He won the FedExCup, after winning both the Deutsche Bank Championship and THE TOUR Championship.  He has four PGA TOUR victories.  Just recently finished in a tie for fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

            Henrik, before we open it up to questions, would you like to share your thoughts on the state of your game as you are heading into the 2014 Masters?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, I think it's in decent shape.  I think you always feel like when you're coming to a big tournament like this one, you always want to play a little bit better and be a little bit more prepared.  But we are in decent shape, and you know, putting has been a little bit off maybe the last couple of weeks.  But that doesn't matter, because you don't need to putt well around Augusta, right?  (Laughter)  So that would be the one area I need to spend a little bit of extra time these last couple of days here.

            Yeah, it's in decent shape.  It could be better; it could be worse.  But experience‑wise, I've played this tournament so many times and I had some good preparation Monday, Tuesday last week, so I don't really feel like it's going to be down to knowledge or not preparing here on site if I don't have a good week.  So just go out there and try and play solid and keep patient for 3, 3 1/2 days, and hopefully have a chance on the back nine.

            If you're up on that leaderboard on Sunday afternoon, you're always in with a chance.  A lot of things can happen over those last nine holes, we've seen that over the years.  So if I can be there or thereabouts, and if I can be there, I'll be happy, win or lose, I'll be happy if I give myself an opportunity to do well here this week.

            Q.  There's a lot of talk about all the first‑time players here, and I wanted to get your memories about your first week here, your first Masters and what are some of the things that you know now that you didn't know then?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, when you come here the first time, you still think that it's a good idea to hit a nice little draw left of the bunker on 2.  But then you overturn it and it goes in the pine needles and ends up in the creek, you realize that wasn't the case.

            It's a course that I think you need normally to play a few times to get the hang of, and you've got to make a few mistakes.  Even if someone else tells you that it's not a good idea to miss it left until you're actually standing down there dropping in the trees, it's a bit like when your parents told you not to do stuff and you still did it, right.

            It's a course where you definitely pick up a lot of things as you go along, and with a few Masters under your belt, then it should become soon easier and easier to do well on this golf course.  I know we've got a couple of first‑timers here that's been playing really well, both Jimmy Walker, Patrick Reed and Jordan, has he played here before?  No.  I mean, there's a couple of guys that's been playing really well and they are here for the first time, and that's obviously one thing that could be a disadvantage for them.

            But then again, we know the game; if you're playing extremely well, you can win your first time around here anyway.  But I guess also you gain experience as you go along, and you're coming back in the future to hopefully do better.

            Q.  Are you feeling any differently coming into this Masters at No. 3 in the world with a chance to go to No. 1 coming off the year you did, compared with other years when you might have been No. 12 or what have you?

            HENRIK STENSON:  I guess the odds are just a little bit lower with the bookie, right?

            Q.  Did you look?

            HENRIK STENSON:  I saw when I had breakfast, 25 to 1 it said.

            Q.  Did that disappoint you?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Massively (laughter).  No, it doesn't really feel that much different.  I think it's not been too many Masters where I feel like I've played my best coming into the week.  That's possibly why I haven't done as well as I think I should have done on this golf course.  It's a decent track record, but it's nothing great.

            So that would be the first thing for me, would be to beat my personal best.  I've got two, tied 17th and an 18th, I think, in the previous Masters.  So that would be a good start to beat those finishes.

            I would be happy if I have a Top‑10 this week.  That's always a good week.  But ultimately if you want to win, you've got to be a little bit higher up.  I had two good chances last year at The Open Championship and the US PGA, so if I can put myself in the mix again, then, you know, sooner or later, you'll get one of these.

            Q.  I know you want to win, but if you finish second and nobody else ‑‑ with one other person, that you would be No. 1, would that be in your mind at all?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Not really.  I wasn't thinking about it until you mentioned it (laughter).  No, actually someone else did a couple of minutes ago.

            If I have a chance to win, I'll be just focusing on that.  The other thing would be a nice bonus that comes with it.  But I'm more concerned about winning tournaments than setting new records for myself on the rankings.  But of course, when I pack up the clubs one day, to have been ranked No. 1 in the world at some point, I guess it has a nice tone to it.  So I could live with that.

            Q.  Take a wild guess; how many times do you think you've been reminded that a Swede has never won a men's major, and what's that pressure like?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Once again, it would be a nice thing for me to be the first to do that, but I'm more concerned about winning a major than being the first Swede to do it.  If one of my colleagues do it before me, it's not like I'm going to be devastated.  That would be a great thing, and I'm more concerned about me winning one.  That's kind of the one thing missing on my record.

            So I'm looking at five years, I hope I can give myself a couple of chances to win one of the big ones and hopefully do so.

            Q.  You mentioned very accurately your record around this place.  Does it surprise you that it has been not as good as it should be and is there any particular reason that you can think of behind that?

            HENRIK STENSON:  It doesn't surprise me now, because I know what I've done the last eight years.

            Well, I think that's why I keep coming back and then feeling like I should do better.  Because it's a golf course I think that fits my game if I'm playing well.  I don't have a better answer than I don't feel like I've been here firing on all cylinders, really.  The first couple of times, yeah, you're here more to learn than maybe challenge for the best finishes.  So a combination of things.

            I think it was in '09, actually, that I played really well, but I putted poorly on the Saturday and that kind of put me out of the mix completely.  But then I said to some of the Swedish media, I said, well, I feel like something good is around the corner, anyway, the way I'm playing.  PLAYERS came about a couple of months later, so that is one time I played really well.

            A couple of years ago, I was up in the mix, as well, but I wasn't playing that good tee‑to‑green.  So it was more a joint effort with every part of the game to be there, and I had a disappointing Sunday.  But hopefully we learn from a couple of bad rounds and I can have my best Masters up‑to‑date this year.

            Q.  What have you learned from the ups and downs of your career, and how much more does it make you appreciate what you're able to do in the second half of last year, knowing where you had been the previous year?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, of course I finished last year on a high.  A lot of things went my way there, and then that's normally ‑‑ with this game, when you get on a good run and you're playing well, it feels like it should never end; and when you're playing poorly, you never feel like you're going to break par again in your life.

            So it's an interesting game.  Yeah, I think I appreciate the good times possibly even more when I've had some bigger slumps over the years, but everyone goes ups and downs, goes through them.  It might just be a question of mine being a little bit higher and a little bit lower at times than some of my colleagues ‑‑ now I lost myself, I don't even know if you answered your question.

            Q.  Things you might have learned about yourself.

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, I think that I don't give up that easily.  I think that's one reason why I'm sitting here today.  If you hang in there and work hard, you will get your rewards and it's going to be the same here.  It tends to be that you almost accumulate up to winning some of these championships.  We saw that with Adam last year, and I was very happy for him to win this tournament last year, having gone through a tough time at The Open the year before that.

            You live and you learn, and if you come back enough times, you will get your rewards.

            Q.  You've said a few times this morning, you've never really come into Augusta playing at your best, and you said your game could be better, could be worse.  Despite all that, do you have a different mind‑set this year, simply because of your great campaign last year?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, I think ‑‑ I don't think I questioned my ability even before last year of being able to win some good tournaments.  I think that was the one thing I really felt after winning THE PLAYERS Championship in '09 is that it was no different really on that Sunday afternoon the way I played and then handled myself, and the guys that I beat would be no different compared to winning a major championship.

            I kind of know that if I do the right things, I can beat most of them, or all of them, and it's just about being up there.  That's the tricky win; play good enough to be up there and then be in position, and then you might find those extra 15 percent that you might feel at the early part of the week that you are missing, and it might all come together when you need it the most; and I would consider myself fairly strong when I'm in that position.

            Q.  How mentally do you build on last year in terms of, is it a case of saying, well, I carry on doing what I was doing last year, or are you looking to kick on from that?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Well, there's certainly parts of my game where I feel like I would like to improve on, and putting is a constant area or an area that I'm constantly looking at and wedge game would be the same.  More so, the longer part of the wedge game.  But again, golf is a game you never get finished.  You always improve.

            But I know the long‑term patience with my golf game and the work that I was doing, that's what paid off.  So it's more about sticking to that and that's why I don't feel any panic if I'm not playing my best here this week.  It could be a bit annoying when you're coming into a big championship if you don't feel like you're playing as well as you would have liked to, but rushing about it or feeling like it has to happen, that's normally the one key that will make it happen.

            So keep on doing the right things, and if I don't play well this week, we've got the U.S. Open in a couple of months.  It's all about patience.

            Q.  During your formative years in golf in Sweden, just curious how much golf was available on television, how much did you watch?

            HENRIK STENSON:  I fell asleep many nights to the Masters Tournament, very soothing music and the flowers (laughter).  When it goes to commercial break over here, it's like (nodding off), because it's the middle of the night.  As a kid, the one kind of clear memory I have, is when Sandy Lyle hit the 7‑iron out of the bunker on 18 in '88.  So that's probably my first Masters memory from television.

            Q.  Curious how much television you watched in general and where did you get your inspiration from?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, I didn't know you at the time so (laughter) always have to give you a punch, don't I.

            Q.  You just did.

            HENRIK STENSON:  Really, I think it was the Masters and the British Open and The Ryder Cup.  I think those were the ones that were shown on television at that stage.  It was Faldo and Seve I remember watching, they were my two heros on the golf course.

            Q.  Have you ever spoken to Sandy Lyle about that memory that sticks out for you?

            HENRIK STENSON:  No, but if I see him today, I will remind him.  I'm sure he'll enjoy that.

            Q.  You mentioned the highs and lows earlier, can you pinpoint a particular one where it went off from there, what was the most challenging time?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Over the course of my whole career?

            Q.  Particularly the last ‑‑ the most difficult time before you had gone on this fantastic run last year.

            HENRIK STENSON:  Well, I think that it was probably more the back end of 2011 season, and I had really decided into 2012 that it was time to, all right, I was fed up with playing poorly, really, and even if I wasn't playing great early on in the 2012 season, at least I put my mind to it and I started to make some decent results as a consequence.  So just fighting hard and pure will power, I guess.

            Yeah, it was a lot of work put in the next year and a half to kind of get the ball rolling completely.

            Q.  You said the first couple years for you was a learning experience.  Some of these rookies are very confident.  Do you think that they might be in for a little shock on Thursday?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Possibly.  I mean, confident is good, and like I said, they might be coming into this tournament with good form and playing well, and if you're feeling really good about your game, I think you can do well on any golf course, whether it be the first time or not.

            But then, there's always a chance that there might be one or two surprises around the corner here, that's for sure.  That wind down there at Amen Corner, that's brilliantly designed to swirl around there the whole time.  So causes a few hiccups (turning to Member) how to you do that?  (Laughter).

            Q.  What were your first experiences like, using different strategies?

            HENRIK STENSON:  Yeah, I think it's one off the tee, kind of sucks you into want to be down the right side a little bit more and with those new trees coming in there, I don't know if that was about five years ago or something, added some trees.

            In the past, you could miss it down the right and still have a shot.  That's not really the case these days.  You've got to hit a good tee ball, but then it's a very difficult second shot right and leaves tricky up‑and‑downs.  That's kind the nature of the whole golf course, but you've got to commit and you've got to hit good golf shots to give yourself the opportunities, and if you don't, you're paying the price for it, and there's no room for in between.

            On a normal TOUR event, a lot of times you can get decent birdie chance from 20, 25 feet.  But it's almost like you either hit it within ten, 15 feet here for sure in the right section, or you are going down the hill to the same place as a poor shot would end up, so it's not really a golf course for in‑between play paying off.

            Q.  You talk about the hardest part, your game is not quite where you want it right now, but is the hardest part of this season being mentally fresh after what you went through last season?

            HENRIK STENSON:  I would say so.  That's definitely been a challenge, and being a little bit Catch 22, you're not rested and you're not really where you want to be with the game, so you're trying to practice and move forward in that department.  But then at the same time, you need rest.  So it's kind of, how do you go about that.

            But I feel a bit fresher.  Last month with staying more at home and playing a home tournament in Orlando and so on, it feels like I've got a little bit more energy back.

            MODERATOR:  Henrik thanks very much.  Best of luck this week.