Does your second place in the final of the circuit leave you some regrets?
No, there is more satisfaction than disappointment. I reach this final second in the ranking, and it’s great run second in the tournament to secure myself this second place in the order of merit, because all the well-ranked guys played well. If I had missed it, it could have been detrimental for me in the final standings. With a few strokes, I could have won the tournament, but I could also have finished lower and come out of the top 3 of the Pro Golf Tour. So I was really happy. I’m just a little disappointed with the start of my last round because if I played well I didn’t manage to birdie a lot, and I didn’t put myself in a position to win the tournament. But overall, to be second in the final is very good.
And second over the entire season too, we imagine?
Yes of course. I have shown great consistency throughout the season, and even though I did not play the first two tournaments on the calendar in Egypt, I finished just behind the winner of the ranking. I’ve done eight top 10s out of the eleven tournaments I’ve played, and I haven’t done any worse than 16th. My second place validates this consistency.
Your few appearances on the Challenge Tour were also fruitful …
I haven’t had many opportunities to play on the Challenge Tour, but each time it worked well for me since I made sixth in Austria for the resumption of circuits (theEuram Bank Open mid-July, editor’s note) and eleventh to theopen du Portugal mid-September, two tournaments co-sanctioned by the European tour. It’s good to have performed well in tougher tournaments, with a higher density field, because in Austria there were not many big names in the Tour, as in Portugal there were serious clients.
What are the keys to this consistency?
It’s the result of all the changes I have made over the past year, and all the work I’ve been doing for years. I changed coaches, I surrounded myself with new people, I changed my place of life, so that made a lot of major changes. These choices are quite marked, but for now it’s paying off.
Can you describe the way you operate on a daily basis, and the people you work with?
I now live in Prague, I made this choice to accompany my girlfriend, so I find myself a little alone, in autonomy. It changes me quite a bit from what I was used to Cannes-Mougins, where I knew everyone, where I had my habits. There, I got out of my routine, and I was very well received at theAlbatross Golf Resort, the club that receives the Czech Masters on theEuropean Tour. I’m very lucky to be able to train there, in great conditions in terms of infrastructure and maintenance. By making the decision to move to Prague, I did not expect to find myself in such good training conditions, frankly! Beside that I started to work with Olivier Léglise at the end of summer 2019: we haven’t seen each other much this year because of the Covid-19, but we worked well last winter and we continue to do the job thanks to modern means of communication. I still work with Jean Fournier, my mental trainer, but I also work with a person called Mathieu David on more global issues, outside of golf, and that does me a lot of good. I also started to work with Robin Cocq on everything related to performance in general. So that makes a lot of changes in my staff, but also in the way I train. I may be training less than before, but it’s smarter, with better set goals and better built sessions. Thanks to Olivier Léglise, I had the opportunity to meet Pello Iguaran, the old caddy of Francesco Molinari, who wore his bag especially during his victory at the British Open in 2018. It was interesting to have his vision of the very high level and his comments during the sessions we spent together.
You only have French people in your staff, which means that you are normally on your own in training in Prague?
Indeed, but I like this autonomy. We communicate a lot and very well with all these people, I send a lot of videos and I have clear answers very quickly, which is essential, but I train well alone in the Czech Republic. I take advantage of my trips to the tournament to see the members of my staff, we set up directions to follow at such times, and when I return to Prague it’s up to me to apply them. It’s a way of working that suits me well: it doesn’t suit everyone, I suppose, but I like to organize my sessions, plan my work, and do my best on my own. I am well aware of having taken a small risk by going to Prague, because the winter is harsh there and the courses are closed, but as I said it I had a huge chance to benefit from the reception which I have had at the Albatross. I also had a lot of help from Basile Dalberto, the cart of Matthieu pavon who has been living in Prague for ten years. I didn’t know him when I arrived, but I contacted him and he really helped me acclimatize to Czech life, and gave me a lot of good tips. As a foreigner, it is undeniably a plus to have the help of fellow countrymen when you arrive in another country.
So you are back on the Challenge Tour next year, a circuit that you attended without success in 2018 and 2019. With what objectives?
Despite the complicated year we had with the Covid-19, it’s already good to have been able to improve my category of the Challenge Tour via the Pro Golf Tour. I already had a small one, but now I have a better one, and it may not be over since I will be playing the last three tournaments of the season (he is currently 25th in the order of merit, editor’s note). I still have goals for the end of the season: if I win a tournament or finish in the top 5 of the ranking, I further improve my category. It doesn’t leave much room, but it’s a great challenge! And whatever happens, I have high goals for next year, although it is not yet clear how the 2021 season looks in terms of the number of tournaments. In any case, I hope to have a good year and get on the European Tour in 2022.
My path to reaching the highest level is just a little different from the others.
How do you see the five years since your professional career?
I have no regrets, and I wouldn’t do anything differently if I had to do it again. My years at university in the United States were a great experience, which really built me up as a player, and as a man too. My ambition, in the next four or five years, is clearly to return to the USA to play on the PGA Tour. So all these years spent in Texas will help me in terms of acclimatization, taking bearings, because we can clearly see that this is the major difficulty for almost all Europeans who play very well and who want to go to the PGA. Tower. It will be a great asset in the future. After, concerning my professional career, what is a little disappointing is that it takes so long. But everything happens for a reason, and I tell myself that my path to getting to the top is just a little bit different from the rest. All these years have allowed me to highlight the gaps and problems in certain aspects of my game. In particular on the physique and the management of fatigue: each season, I start by performing well at the end of winter. , and when the time comes to string together four, five, six tournaments, I take a bit of a nose and I’m less and less efficient. It has been the case in every one of my seasons except this one. That’s why the most rewarding for me in 2020 is not necessarily this second place in the final ranking, or even my two victories, but rather the fact of having managed to produce a good level of play on each round, in each tournament, from start to finish. This is what gives me the most confidence for the future.
Coming back to the United States to meet your former college friend Paul Barjon on the PGA Tour, is that the dream?
What Paul has been doing for the past few years is very, very strong. He’s always had a great physique, he’s strong mentally, he’s not afraid to be assertive, and he has a very good playing field with a big hit and a solid putting. He has surrounded himself well, whether at the university where he progressed enormously between his first and his last year, or since he turned pro. Seeing him where he is today makes sense. Afterwards, he’s out of luck since there is no climb on the PGA Tour this season due to the pandemic, but it will do so next year. That way we will have a full-time Frenchman on the American circuit, while waiting for a second … or more!
