Fresh off Europe’s Ryder Cup win, Rasmus Højgaard says the tank is low and the putter “underperformed”—but the goals are huge: lock his PGA TOUR card and fight back into the world’s Top-50. Can he turn a Ryder Cup hangover into a statement week in Jackson?
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Keywords: Rasmus Højgaard, Ryder Cup hangover, putter underperformed, PGA TOUR card, FedEx fall, Top-50 push, Nicolai Hojgaard, 110 percent, jet lag
All right, we’d like to welcome Raasmus Hoyard to the Sanderson Farms Championship. Rasmus coming in off a successful European team victory in the RDER Cup. Uh I guess the first question I’ll ask you is how are the energy levels coming into this week? Uh the energy level is not very high. It’s uh the last few days has been uh it’s been quite rough, but it was all worth it. You um this is your first start here in the Sanderson Farms Championship. Uh, having said that, coming in here, have you had a chance to play the golf course or look at it or uh ask anybody about it and what have you learned? No, I um I had my caddy out walking the course. Uh I think he did it yesterday. So, uh yeah, I’m planning to play nine holes in the prom later today and and that will be my uh practice round. How different was this RDER Cup last week compared to the one two years ago? Because I know you were involved in the back room of that. Um, but how different was it to be actually competing in it this this year? Yeah, the the RDER Cup in Rome, I um I guess I was part of the team in a way. Uh, but I wasn’t really in in the players team room. I uh I stayed away from that. Um, so yeah, it it certainly a different different environment, but uh being being a player and being there with with everyone uh especially in in New York was uh was super special. It was um I think Luke and his whole team has prepared did prepare as well for for you know whatever we were going to face. If you have any questions just raise your hand and we’ll get you a microphone and uh we’ll start over here with with Mike. Can we get a microphone? Can we get a microphone to Mike please? Over here. Thanks Mitch. Thank you. How you doing? Um, so like you said, coming off a lot of uh, you know, kind of few days rest and everything. Uh, you know, as a professional golfer, how does what goes into, you know, kind of preparing for another tournament like this, you know, coming off such an electric one, uh, you know, just a few days ago? Well, the thing for me is that I um I still have some some things that I’d like to achieve for the rest of the year. And I had this plan uh all the time that I was going to play this week and play Japan next week. So, you know, whatever the outcome would have been last week, I I was still going to tee it up this week. Uh I just yeah just had to prepare myself that the energy level might be a little lower than it would be normally but um yeah I’m certainly going to still prepare myself as as well as I can. And coming off a you know Ryder Cup win is did you think that gives you a little bit more confidence heading into this week? Um you know as a lot of these guys you know maybe haven’t played in a week or two but you coming off you know such a good tournament win. Does that maybe give you a little bit more confidence head end of the week? Yeah, I guess um it certainly gives you confidence being a part of the team and you know being there play golf in that environment for sure. Um again now it’s now it’s back to uh being on my own again and having my own team do our thing. So again it’s it’s it’s going to be completely different being out there uh this week, but again it’s uh going to treat it as as any other event. And you touched on it a little bit at the end of that, but I was going to ask you, you know, coming from kind of a team event back to, you know, your own team, you know, how do you kind of make that quick, you know, transition a little bit? I think we all, you know, the Ryder Cup is only once every two years, so you put everything into being a part of that. Um, and then once once you leave the whole team there, it’s it’s it’s it’s not going to feel so different because you you go into what is normal for you again. So, I think we all know uh what to do to get prepared uh for this week. Ras, did you learn anything about your game being such a pressure-packed environment of the RDER Cup? Something that maybe you felt or that you that you did that says, you know, that your game, you know, not just, you know, out in regular tournaments, but in something that’s so pressure packed like that or a major that you can that you can perform in. Well, I think for for most of the guys that were there last week, it was a completely different environment. And especially for me, I’ve never experienced, you know, um such a stressful and pressure situations as as as that. So, I think there’s certainly things in my game that I can I can improve. Uh and that’s you know one of the things that was so good from from that from that week is is learning like under the uh intense pressure what kind of the game needs improvement and that’s what I’m going to take with me from from that week you know especially you know you could look at it there’s some putting last week was obviously probably the most important thing with how the course was set up and and you could see that the European teams that’s wise especially the first two days outperformed uh the US team in in parting cuz T Green it was very similar. Um and I think that’s where uh for me I probably underperformed a little bit. Um and that’s some of the things that I can look at and try and improve more. You mentioned there are some goals that you would like to achieve this season. Can you share some of those? Yeah, it’s I mean I’m in a situation right now where I don’t have my card secured. So that’s obviously a big part uh of this year and again get myself back into top 50 in the world. Um is a is a big thing for me as well. So I guess those are the two big things for the rest of the year now. Um so that next year’s schedule uh is looks looks a bit better. And speaking of securing your card, you’re currently 87th in the FedEx fall uh standings. How much do you intend to play uh in the fall? Uh as many tournaments as it takes. I don’t have um a certain amount of of of plan to play these two weeks. Um and then Utah and and Mexico. Um you’re a five-time winner on the DP World Tour and so a lot of fans are familiar with you uh on that side of the the Atlantic. Um, you’ve also set a lot of records in golf. First player who was born in the 2000s to win on the DP World Tour. You’re the third youngest winner. You and your brothers won back to back. First brothers to do that. How meaningful is it for you to set records like that? And, you know, do you look back on that and sort of take take pride in that? Yeah, I don’t I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that. Um, obviously that that backto-back week for myself and Nikolai was very special. It was is a cool thing to have that we can talk about for the rest of our lives. Uh, hopefully we can do something similar again. But yeah, I don’t I don’t really uh it’s never really been a been a thing for me trying to chase records and you know, it’s so if that’s things that happens, great. But um, yeah, it’s it’s certainly cool to be be part of it. But I think the thing that me and Nikolai can can look at is is that backto-back weeks was uh super special for not just for us but for the whole family. You’re um you earned your PGA Tour card as one of the 10 players from the DP World Tour to to be exempt uh for the 25 season. We’re coming up on that happening again for the 26th season with 10 more players. What what sort of advice would you give to those 10 players that you know gain that access to the PGA Tour from the DP World Tour? I’d say that um I mean you got to you got to give yourself 110%. Um if you if you want to come over here and compete, you got to be here fulltime. Uh I think that was one of the things that Nicola said to me early on was that we’re going to get a we’re going to get a a place over here so that we don’t have to travel back to Denmark every other week. um you know in that way you practice and you play in the same environment that or the same courses and everything that that you’re going to play on and you don’t you skip all the jet lags and and the long travel. So I think that for me would be I guess the advice is to once you commit to come over here and play do it 110%. How much have you gotten back to Denmark this season and when you do what what sort of things do you do there? I’ve probably been back in Denmark a handful of times, I think. Um, what have I done? Play golf. Um, spend spend a lot of time with my dogs, probably. That’s been my main thing. Any further for Raasmus? All right, Raasmus, we appreciate your time and good luck this week. Thank you.
