We didn't have cable TV. We just couldn't afford it. But you don't need cable to watch the Masters. In 1997, at the exact moment I started out, I watched Tiger Woods win the Masters.
I think it's a cool thing to have kids look up to me and to know that it doesn't matter, your background or your ethnic background. If you have goals and dreams, you can achieve them. I am extremely proud to be Tongan and Samoan, and to be the first on Tour and the first in the Masters is a cool thing.
In 2013, I changed to left-hand low, or cross-handed. And it's helped a lot. At the time, the reason I switched was just a lot of inconsistency with putting. I was either making a lot of putts, or I was missing a lot of putts.
When your hands are cold, and you're hitting with old, low-quality irons - my first one was a Merlin model with a green shaft - you learn what to do to hit the ball solid.
My irons are three-eighths of an inch longer than standard.
The Ping 51-degree makes for a nice transition from the irons. On my 60, it says 8 degrees of bounce, but I grind it to about 5 or 6 degrees. I tried a head with less bounce, but it just didn't look right.
This whole golf thing was so left field for us, as Polynesians, but he had a lot of knowledge about sports in general. My dad was a genius, really. He was an absolute genius.
I think there's too many rules in golf. And I mean that's easy to say for a player, but putting together a rule book is a tough thing in this game because there are so many different parts of the game.
We grew up in the Rose Park section of Salt Lake City. It's a good neighborhood but a tough one, on the poor side but proud. Sports are big. You learn to fight.
A lot of times, college can get you sidetracked. I was ready to turn my full attention to golf.
I know a lot of kids following in my footsteps, not only from my heritage, but there's younger generations trying to follow in my footsteps, so it's really cool just to be the start of something pretty special for our culture.
