Rasmus Hojgaard has the momentum as he switches venues and formats this week at the Barracuda Championship for another start on the PGA Tour. Excerpts:
Welcome to the Barracuda Championship, Rasmus Hojgaard. Played in Scotland last week, T10 at the Genesis Scottish Open. Great to bring some momentum over here to the PGA Tour?
Rasmus: Yeah, of course. Played well overall last week. Obviously had a goal to make it into The Open but didn’t do that, so well, I was fortunate to get in over here and made the trip.
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In terms of the golf course, it’s a little bit different to the test that you had last week. What are your thoughts?
Rasmus: It’s a great golf course. Conditions are good. The ball is traveling a long way. Have to probably count on maybe 10, 12 percent extra. Yeah, it’s a bit long and I’d say a bit narrow off the tee, tree-lined course, but I enjoy courses like this. My home club in Denmark reminds me a little bit of this, so I’m looking forward to it.
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Different format this week with the modified Stableford. What are your thoughts on that?
Rasmus: Well, I’ve seen the tournament on TV and the scoring before. It seems like there’s a lot of birdie chances and potential eagles out there. But again, I don’t think that means you necessarily have to go for everything. You’ve still got to be a little bit sensible and then be aggressive at the right time, I think. I think that will be my approach.
You’ve had a couple of starts on the PGA TOUR this year; what can you take from those experiences into this week?
Rasmus: Well, it’s just, I guess, get a bit more comfortable with all the people out here and just the surroundings. Obviously in Europe I know all the guys there, all the staff, everyone. Everything feels so comfortable, where over here everything is new. It’s just getting to know the people here and just spend a bit more time figuring out how it works over here.
How would you describe kind of the differences in preparing for the Scottish Open type of layout and this layout here with the elevation? Are there extra steps with the elevation?
Rasmus: Well, in Scotland it’s a links course. It’s very firm. The ball runs 50, 60 yards. It’s very windy so you have to control the ball flight certainly. I think here you can kind of — I can kind of start to hit normal golf shots again in some way. It’s just having that adjustment to be able to do that.
Are there any particular holes here where you might be more aggressive based on the scoring format?
Rasmus: I don’t think so. I mean, I still think there’s a lot of par-4s out there where you have to hit the middle of the green and take what you get from there and obviously the par-5s are gettable. I don’t know, I think it’s easy to become overaggressive in this format and kind of chase the eagle or a lot of birdies, but at the same time seven birdies and seven bogeys are better than 14 pars. I guess it’s just a mix and having a balance to be aggressive at the right time.
