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HUMANA CHALLENGE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CLINTON FOUNDATIONJanuary 15, 2014Brandt SnedekerLA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA MARK STEVENS: We would like to welcome Brandt Snedeker to the interview room. This is going to be your sixth start in the Humana Challenge. You have 17 straight rounds under par if you kind of want to talk about your thoughts coming into the week and then we'll have some questions. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, it's obviously ‑‑ this is one of my favorite events just because of obviously the weather here is perfect, the golf courses I feel like setup really well for me. I actually am really excited about what the week holds. I came off a decent finish two weeks ago in Maui and feel like my game's in great shape coming in this week and looking forward to the next four days. It should be‑‑ I expect myself to have a pretty good four days. MARK STEVENS: Questions? Q. Last year this was about the only tournament that you didn't contend in on the West Coast. At the beginning of last year you were full of confidence coming in, how do you compare your game and your confidence level now as opposed to 12 months ago? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's pretty similar, actually. The West Coast always seems to treat me very well. I love playing on the West Coast. One of my favorite places to be. Feel like my game's actually really in pretty good shape. I played really well at Maui and then just didn't quite have a few good breaks here or there, a few bad breaks and didn't quite convert on a lot of opportunities I had. This week I feel like I'm hitting the ball as good as I've ever hit it. Feel really confident with what's going on in my long game and my short game's just going to be ‑‑ all it comes down to this week is whether you make those key 10‑footers or not. Pretty much turns into a putting contest every year because there's so many birdie opportunities. So that traditionally suits my game pretty well, so I'm excited about the rest of the week. Q. This tournament is about health. So how is your health and can you run us through your recovery in the off season and so forth and where you are now? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Health is great. I actually had a knee injury in China. Self‑inflicted stupidity injury. Luckily it was not very serious. Just had a pretty much ‑‑ it boiled down a deep bone bruise and a sprain in my ACL and is a hundred percent healed. Got through Maui with no issues whatsoever. Which I was actually shocked about. I figured it would be pretty sore or swell up a little bit and had no issues whatsoever. Feels a hundred percent. So the year started off on a good note. I feel like I'm healthy, I feel like I'm ready to go. And as long as I can keep doing that I feel like it's going to be my best year ever. Q. When you get on a run like you did on the West Coast last year, is that just a matter of everything clicking or were there certain things that you did that were different than maybe you did before? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's a combination of things. A combination of being extremely patient which is hard to do. Sometimes in a format like this where you need to make a lot of birdies, but I was extremely patient, I drove the ball really well, wedge game was as good as it's ever been, and I made some putts. And you have those combinations on these golf courses out here, out west, you're going to play pretty well. And I was really smart about the way I prepared. I had a great game plan and I got injured and everything kind of shifted a little bit and I had to kind of adjust the way I prepared adjusted the way I game planned because of that and I suffered for a few months. Hopefully I won't have to do that adjustment this year. I have a great clear picture of what I want to accomplish the first few months leading you know, to Augusta, and got my schedule pretty much set and a good game plan for how to be ready. Q. With each year going by and no Major in your resume yet, how does that change your approach to the year and how does that change your schedule or does it? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I think the biggest thing now is my, I think my 7th or 8th year on TOUR, and I know how to prepare for Majors now versus before. I was trying to find my way how to do it. I've got a great game plan for Augusta, for the British Open, for the US Open and for the PGA. And so I know how to be a hundred percent ready to go into those. I feel confident with that routine of how to be prepared. Just a matter of putting yourself in the right chances and leaving yourself opportunities. I've done a better job the last few years of having opportunities and the more you do that, the more comfortable you are. I'm not scared of any situation now in a major, afraid to be in contention. I'm ready for that, I welcome that opportunity and I think this year's going to be another one I'm going to have at least another chance, hopefully two or three and try to break through that door. Q. You unsuccessfully lobbied James Franklin via Twitter. That seemed rather bold in terms of using Twitter for you. How did that experience go? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's amazing in what mileage I got out of that one tweet. But I was ‑‑ Vanderbilt sports I'm pretty passionate about. I got to know James Franklin very well and I think we all had hope that he would stay. I was doing everything in my power to try to keep him from going, keep him to stay. But he fortunately, or unfortunately, knows what kind of teacher I am so he realized it was not that great of an offer. But he's a great guy, a great coach, he'll do great at Penn State and I guess I did step out a little bit with that kind of offer but it was fun. I got a lot of great responses from it and people were ‑‑ I've got some Penn State guys giving me a hard time now so that's been fun. Hopefully I can do more stuff like that on Twitter and kind of let people see my personality a little bit more. Q. Match play question. How does the format feel a little bit different and you always have those weird swing and holes where a guy holes a shot or long putt that you thought you had to hole one. What's the weirdest one you can remember either from the Public Links or amateur days or the actual Match Play? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Retief. I played Retief two years ago in the Match Play in the first round and he drove ‑‑ a par‑5 on the back nine, I think it's 13, 12 or 13‑‑ he drove the ball in the desert, typical match play, unplayable lie. Chipped it out, had 190 yards in for his fourth shot. And I'm short of the green in two and he holes it out for four. And I go from being, thinking I'm going to be up one or two or to go up two, I think, and I hit it on the green, 50 feet away and then I make the putt on him to halve him, so we both were just walking off the green completely shocked at what had just happened. So it was a typical match play, never know what's going to happen, and those kind of swings happen all time. And that's why match play's never the luck of the draw, but there's definitely a lot more luck that goes into it because of those kind of swings in matches and making sure that your holes that you have that on or how you play certain holes versus how another guy plays certain holes. So it's definitely different, it's definitely tough and it's something that I enjoy, I have great time with it. Q. How far do you think he was? BRANDT SNEDEKER: He was about 190 yards, 1830 yards. Q. What were the, you talked about prepping for Majors and how you have got it down now. What were the key alterations you made to get it right? BRANDT SNEDEKER: The British Open I tried four different routines. I tried playing the week before at John Deere, I tried playing the week before at Scottish Open, I tried not playing at all, and then right now what seems to work best for me is going over on the Thursday or Wednesday before and just playing that one golf course four or five days in a row getting used to it and being prepared come Tuesday, Monday of the actual tournament week. Augusta, I got the same routine every year. I go down to Sea Island and practice the week before. They do a great job of preparing the golf courses very fast and firm down there, kind of like Augusta. And then with the U.S. Open it seems like it works best for me to play the week before at Memphis, because Memphis is a tough test with the FedEx there, St.Jude classic there, because par is a good score there, gets you in the right mindset. Hard to hit fairways and greens there. And the PGA is just the PGA. It's, you're right in the middle of a big stretch of golf and you got to play and get ready. Q. Speaking of that big stretch, because of your sponsorships, you might feel, you might be more playing more than other guys‑‑ BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yes. Q. ‑‑ coming into that thing because of the Wyndham deal‑‑ BRANDT SNEDEKER: Right. Q. ‑‑ and the Canadian deal. What does it look like for you in that stretch? Eight of nine? BRANDT SNEDEKER: "Have tournament will play" is pretty much what it's going to boil down to. I did it two years ago, when I won the FedExCup playoffs, I played eight out of nine weeks ending the year. I'm going to playing eight straight or nine straight this year to end the year. That's just part of the way it falls. I'm excited to do it. I feel like I, that's what I do for a living, it's not going to affect me in any way. I do little things differently. I don't, I take a couple days off here and there where I normally wouldn't do that. I change my travel plans a little bit to give myself some time off in that stretch. But it worked great two years ago, I wasn't playing great last year in that stretch, so it didn't seem like it worked out great last year, but I'm not too worried about it. Q. So Wyndham and Canada are on the schedule? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Oh, yeah. The PGA, Bridgestone, they're all on the schedule. Q. You called it self inflicted stupidity. Could you elaborate. Had you not been on a Segway before? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I had been on a Segway before. I think I felt a little too comfortable on the Segway. And it ended up just going, being a complete idiot and trying to do something I shouldn't have done. And having to jump off of it and landed funny. Could have happened on a basketball court or anything else. But for me I obviously felt like a complete idiot because I did it on a Segway of all things to do it on. But luckily it wasn't serious, but it was scary. I had to fly out of China and thought I had torn my ACL and thought it was going to be a year off from golf and it was not a fun trip home. But luckily it wasn't. So I'm banned from all things with two wheels for the foreseeable future. Q. As you mentioned at Pebble Beach this last week and just in general, this year is huge as you've mentioned and the next couple years the big emphasis on them for you, when you look holistically at your mark in the game of golf, what in these next couple of years do you really want to leave in this game? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I think that everybody looks at their, wants to look at their career in grand terms of what do you think you can accomplish, what's reasonable to accomplish, and where would that be. Obviously a Major is something that I want to have on my resume by the time that my career is over with. That's one I'm really focusing on. And after that, you start hearing the next big number for me would be 20 PGA TOUR wins. I think that seeing Davis accomplish that a few years ago was something that I hold a lot of respect for, because that shows that you have longevity in your career, you've played great, it shows you've been a proven winner and the guys that have done that have are very few and far between. So that's something that ‑‑ I see a guy like Zach Johnson who has 12 TOUR wins now and he's going that way with the Major, that's kind of where my goals are. It might be lofty, but I think I can accomplish them. I feel like I'm on the right path to do that. But that's kind of where I'm looking and my goals and what I see hopefully trying to attain over the next few years. MARK STEVENS: Okay. Thanks for your time, Brandt and have a good week. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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