Twelve months ago MARC LEISHMAN announced himself as a big-time player by contending in the Masters deep into the final day. Golf Australia&aposs Martin Blake has an exclusive Q&A interview with the Australian … GA: Marc, you&aposve done some reconnaissance at Augusta National in the past week or two. How was the course looking? ML: “There are a few trees missing from the ice storm. The (Eisenhower) tree has gone. The rest of the trees are a bit thinner but it doesn&apost change the course at all. That (Eisenhower) tree was not an issue anyway, although I guess if the wind was into and it was cold, it might&aposve been an issue. It was never an issue for me when I&aposve played there. It&aposs always been reasonably calm. GA: You finished tied-fourth in 2013 at Augusta having missed the cut in the two previous tournaments. Tell us a little about last year, because it was a huge breakthrough for you. ML: Last year I felt like I had all the shots I needed to play well at Augusta and just wasn&apost putting it all together. It feels similar this year. I feel like I&aposm playing okay and I&aposve got all the shots I need to have next week but the results haven&apost quite been there. I had a couple of good tournaments early in the year; at Torrey Pines I finished second and in Hawaii I was fifth. I&aposm a little bit more confident this year for sure. It&aposs never great to go there after missing a few cuts in a row. It&aposs nice to have a few extra rounds under the belt. GA: You led the tournament after the first round and you were in the hunt to win until your second shot went into the water in front of the par-five 15th that final day. But overall you held up well, which must have been gratifying. ML: I did feel comfortable. I&aposve never been in that situation before and I really didn&apost know how I was going to react or how I was going to play. To play the way I did … obviously I would&aposve preferred to walk away with the green jacket and be the Cinderella story, but all in all it was a really good week for me. I learnt a lot in that when I do get in that sort of situation and under that sort of pressure, I can handle it. I didn&apost quite finish the way I wanted to but I felt comfortable and I hit the shots I wanted to hit. I feel like if I get in that situation again I&aposll be a lot better for it. GA: And going for the green at 15 was an aggressive play. ML: It was aggressive. I was between clubs. I took the shorter club (five iron) trying to make the eagle and win the tournament. I could&aposve taken the longer club, hit it over the back and made an easy par, but that&aposs not what I wanted to do. I wanted to do what &aposScotty&apos did and win the tournament. I didn&apost quite pull it off but I&aposd rather go down swinging than go down trying to make an easy par or laying up. It&aposs not every day you get a chance to win the Masters. I tried to win it, I didn&apost try not to lose. I went down swinging. Four iron would&aposve gone over the back. Five iron landing on the first third of the green gives me an eagle putt inside 20 feet. But I hit it a little bit fat, it landed on the hill and rolled back in the water. That&aposs golf. I was trying to win the tournament not finish third or fourth. No one even remembers who does that. They only remember who wins. In five years time no one will remember I finished fourth there. I&aposd rather try to win the Masters than make a couple of extra dollars. GA: You were in Adam&aposs group and when he made his birdie putt on the 18th, you did a little fist pump that was captured in the famous photograph. That&aposs not your usual style is it? ML: I never do that myself. To do that for someone else was a bit out of the ordinary, but it was awesome to be there for that. I would&aposve preferred it to be me but I was really happy for a good mate of mine to win the Masters and be there to watch it first-hand. Scotty was at the course until after midnight, so we didn&apost get to catch up, and I was exhausted. I was planning to have a big night but I had two beers and went to bed. It was exhausting. But we&aposve caught up since for a beer and a little reminiscing. GA: You kept rolling after Augusta. You finished top-10 at the Players Championship and ended up beating Matt Kuchar in singles at the Presidents Cup. It seems like your game grew from that performance at Augusta? ML: It was pleasing to know that I could handle the pressure, to hit the shots I wanted to hit under that pressure. That&aposs why you do all the practice that we do, to get into that situation and handle it. It paid off, or it almost paid off. It gives me a lot of confidence. GA: How do you handle the &aposwow&apos factor of Augusta and the Masters? Is it possible to treat it like just another tournament? ML: I try to treat it like that. My first Masters (in 2010), I treated it like the Masters, I probably had too many people staying in my house. In your first Masters I guess that&aposs what everyone does. It&aposs going to be tough to play well because of everything that&aposs happening. Now I try to treat it as another tournament, but it&aposs still the Masters. When you get to the golf course you know it&aposs a huge event but once you get on the course, your competitiveness takes over, I guess. You get in competitive mode, forget everything and try to get the ball in the hole as quickly as you can. GA: Do you think the course suits you? ML: It sets up well for me. Last year I probably hit too many drivers. I don&apost like drawing my driver, so I found a three wood after my first Masters that I could hit a draw or a pretty hard hook with. I can turn it over as much as I want, so on the holes that I want it — 10, 13, 14 for instance — I&aposll use it. There are a few holes where you need a fade like 15, where if you hit a draw you can go behind the trees on the left. Obviously you want to be on the fairway but it&aposs more of a second shot course. Depending where the pin is, you need to miss in certain spots if you&aposre going to miss it. There&aposs certain holes — I&aposve said this to a lot of people — that you could be 10 feet left of the pin and you&aposve got no chance of making par, you could be 100 yards right of the pin and you&aposve got a very good chance of making par. It&aposs matter of knowing where to hit it and where not to hit it, more so where not to hit it. You pick where to take your chances. If you hit a good shot, generally it&aposll feed in and give you a good chance of birdie. It&aposs a stressful week because every single shot there&aposs a chance you&aposre making double bogey if you hit it in the wrong place but you also might have a tap-on birdie. That&aposs what I love about the place. Almost every hole is risk-reward. You definitely can birdie every hole, but if you take it on and don&apost pull the shot off, you could double bogey every hole. GA: Obviously you like the place? ML: On TV it looks so easy. I remember growing up and thinking &aposit looks so easy&apos. But on TV, the best players in the world are playing it. They&aposre only showing the best and they make it look easy. It&aposs really not. There&aposs trouble around every corner and I learnt that in my first Masters. I&aposve taken that on board because it&aposs not easy. It&aposs the little things that make it hard. They mow the fairways from green to tee so every shot is hit into the grain. Grain&aposs such a bit thing over there. Then the greens are running at 15 on the stimpmeter and as hard as Royal Melbourne. GA: Your family will be there? ML: I&aposve got the same house as last year. It&aposll be Mum and Dad, my wife Audrey and our two boys (Harvey and Oliver). Oliver (eight months) is coming to the par-three contest and Harvey was there last year. It&aposs a great day, very relaxed at the start of a stressful week. GA: Your coach Denis McDade told me he believes you can be a top-10 player. What are your thoughts and where do you need to improve? ML: I haven&apost been hitting enough greens. Generally my strength is my irons, but I haven&apost been hitting them as close. I&aposm driving the ball much better than I ever have. Then there&aposs always the putting … Look, I could do that (top 10), definitely. I&aposm not going to talk like Patrick Reed and say that I&aposm a top-five player in the world. Look I&aposm the 68th best player at the moment and my world ranking suggests that, but I feel like if things roll for me I could definitely get into that top 20 and beyond that, who knows? For a start I&aposve got to get into the top 50. GA: Finally, what are your expectations for this week? ML: I haven&apost set targets. I&aposd love to contend and have a chance to win again and I think if I play well, I have a chance to do that. But you have to play well. If you&aposre not striking the ball well you&aposve got no chance. I&aposm confident going into the week but I&aposm not saying I&aposm going to win. I&aposm confident I&aposve got the tools to play well this week and if I play well like I did last year and I get some breaks, I&aposm a good chance to win. But having said that, I still have to play well.
Author: Martin Blake / golf.org.au