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AT&T BYRON NELSON

May 7, 2019

Aaron Wise

Irving, Texas

MICHAEL BALIKER: It's a pleasure to welcome defending champion of the AT&T Byron Nelson, Aaron Wise to the Media Center here.

Aaron, first time being back at Trinity Forest since the win. Kind of being back on property, what are some of the first memories that kind of come flooding back about last year?

AARON WISE: There's a ton. This was an amazing place for me and huge stepping stone in my career. It was one of the best ball-striking weeks of my career from when I was here last year and just a ton of stuff.

I had my family here when I won, hanging out with all them the night after and just experiencing it all. It was a pretty cool place for me to come back to.

MICHAEL BALIKER: Then coming off the tie for 18 finish in Charlotte last week, kind of how is the game progressing over the last few starts?

AARON WISE: The game is good, you know. It's feeling great. It hasn't been maybe the most stellar year for me to this point but feel like I'm really trending well, feel like I had a great finish at the Masters, really got things going that weekend, jumped up the leaderboard a bunch and then continued that into last week and played really strong.

If I putted the way I normally do I would have had a good chance of winning that tournament and it wasn't meant to be but the game feels in a great spot coming here this week.

MICHAEL BALIKER: We'll open up for some questions.

Q. Aaron, I was just curious how much you think Trinity Forest has matured since last year and also I think about half the field has probably never seen this course.
What advice would you give them this week if you had to give them some?

AARON WISE: Yeah. You know, I haven't been out there to play yet. Just got on property a little bit ago. But it looks like it's going to be a different year this year.

Last year it was really firm, really fast, you really had to kind of position your ball around the course, and this week just looking at the weather, looks like it's going to be a little wetter and softer golf course. Might be a little more attackable this year.

I know the scores were still low last year but it was a lot more layups and positioning off the tee. This year might be a lot more drivers being sent around the golf course.

Q. Your mother came in on the weekend last year.
Just curious if she's going to spend the entire week here this week or not even with Mother's Day on Sunday?

AARON WISE: Yeah, she's not going to be able to make it. I actually spent all last week with her. Last week was other birthday. We spent last week as a family there in Charlotte.

Unfortunately, she's not able to make it this week. Maybe if I'm playing well she'll be able to make the weekend again. That would be pretty cool.

MICHAEL BALIKER: This season as a whole and trying to make it back to the tournament championship, that being a goal, now that you've experienced that once, especially your rookie year last year, how do you feel like you've been prepared to kind make it back there and knowing what takes, having already accomplished it once?

AARON WISE: Yeah. You know, it's been a slow start to the season. I actually had a great Fall Series and took quite a break, really focused on fitness over the off-season and it's taken me awhile to get my game back where I feel I can compete and win out here on a weekly basis.

I feel like we're getting into the meat of the season here, you know. Obviously we just played our first Major not too long ago. We have three more coming up, lot of WGC events coming up.

This is the busy time every time we tee it up. It's a really big event. I feel like I've done a great job of getting my game in shape. I feel like I'm just focusing these weeks on kind of tightening up the short game, making sure my putting is good and the ball-striking is where it needs to be to the point where if I can do the little things well, manage myself around the golf course, I have a chance to win every week, which is a really cool feeling, just thinking where I was maybe two, three months ago, trying to get everything together and kind of the hecticness of that, knowing that this stretch was coming up and to feel good right now with all these big events coming up is a great spot to be in.

Q. When you got here last year, how quickly did you feel comfortable at this course? Was it kind of right away or did you have to work your way into it?
AARON WISE: It was one of those things. That's a great question. Last year this course changed very quickly day-to-day and, you know, it didn't start out the week very firm and fast but then come Friday or Saturday we were getting 50, 60, 70 yards of roll with our driver off the tee and it just played totally different.

And then, on top of that, we came out Sunday after that huge rain delay and the ball was going nowhere. It was kind of just stopping in the fairway.

So last year it was really cool for me to be here not only because no one had ever played it and no one kind of had an advantage because of that but also because it changed so much that you really kind of had to know what your golf game was doing at every time to know whether you could play aggressive or you had to play defensive.

It was a pretty cool experience. And this course is that and it can play really easy if it's no wind and soft or, if you get a 30-mile an hour, 28-mile an hour wind around here, it can play really, really difficult because it is narrow enough with the hay grass and stuff around the sides where you can get yourself in some trouble.

I think it's an awesome design and a awesome track just for that, it can play so many different plays depending on what Mother Nature gives you when you walk out there.

Q. You prided yourself on being able to make those adjustments quickly to changing conditions?
AARON WISE: Ask it one more time.

Q. Have you always been somebody that has been able to adapt quickly to changing conditions?
AARON WISE: I try. It's just really knowing where your game is at and being able to kind of adjust to those things. You know, like I spend a lot of time on the range with TrackMan and stuff like that, just knowing, for instance, how far my ball is carrying I can then tell how much further that tee ball got.

If you never knew exactly how far your driver was going to carry on that day you'd never know, you just think, well, I hit it 350 and who knows how much roll it got, you know.

Tells you it carried 295 I would know all of a sudden that I got 55 yards of roll and I can kind of base the rest of the game around that. I think that's a huge key around here just because, like I said, it can change so fast.

So, really knowing your game in and out is a big advantage around here with all the changing conditions.

Q. Just wondering, in the last year since you've been the defending champion of this event, what's the one thing that maybe has surprised you the most about being a PGA TOUR winner?
AARON WISE: About being a PGA TOUR.winner in what actually surprises me most is the difference between winning and 2nd. To us -- it's the most little thing but like I go around the course like last week in Charlotte where I finished 2nd and I mean 80 percent of the people I talk to didn't even know I played in the event.

Like, is this your first time here? I finished 2nd last year, it's not that bad but -- then coming to a place like this where this week everyone knows who I am because I won last year.

It's crazy, the difference but, you know, I had a lot to learn from winning here last year and obviously from here on I actually went on a little bad stretch. I ended up breaking my driver and a lot of little things happened.

I think I missed like five, six cuts after winning here and just it came at a really bad time. Lot of media was on me. I just come off finishing 2nd at Wells Fargo, winning here. I was kind of that hot item, if you want to call it out here, and then to go on and play bad with all that media around me, it was a tough time.

But I learned so much from it and really learned a lot about myself and my golf game and I think I'm way stronger because of it.

MICHAEL BALIKER: Any other questions for Aaron? All right. We appreciate the time and go get them this week.

AARON WISE: Thank you.

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