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THE PRESIDENTS CUP MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 23, 2019Bryson DeChambeauMelbourne, Australia THE MODERATOR: Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for today's call. We're very pleased to have Bryson DeChambeau join us for a few minutes to talk about his upcoming Presidents Cup appearance, making his debut. Bryson, wanted to get some initial thoughts from you, getting to go down to Australia and compete on your first Presidents Cup team, and to make it even sweeter, playing on the Melbourne Sand Belt and playing at Royal Melbourne. Just some opening comments from you. BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, well, first off, thanks for having me. Appreciate being on. The one thing I'd like to say about Australia is I love it. I've played some incredible golf down there, finishing second at the Australian Masters or the Amateurs, or third, it was something around that, and then also finishing in a tie for second at the Australian Masters back when Peter Senior beat my butt. He played really well and beat me there, and it was a lot of fun. I've had fun. I played in the Sydney Open, that was great, and it's going to be great exciting to get back down to Royal Melbourne. That is truly one of my favorite golf courses in the world, it being a MacKenzie design. It certainly tests all facets of your game, and certainly love MacKenzie and what he's done. It's going to be a tremendous honor to play for my team, for our country, and personally I can't think of anything else more exciting than going down there and competing for your country. It's going to be a lot of fun. Q. Tiger, the captain, has made a point that he really wants his team to come in playing really sharp, and I guess with it being a different point in the schedule in December, how are you game planning and preparing to make sure that your game is peaking at the right time? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, first off, I haven't had much of a break this whole entire couple years. I feel like getting some good rest would actually be warranted and necessary for me to play my best. That's one thing. So I am taking a bit of a break. But I will be playing the Hero World Challenge and maybe a couple other PGA TOUR events leading into that. I wish there was a match play event that we could play. That would be incredible. That would help us tremendously. I think it would help both teams tremendously to kind of get comfortable and used to match play sort of events and competition. But can't do that. I think playing the Hero World Challenge will get me all prime-timed up for playing Presidents Cup. Q. Bryson, I'm just wondering if you could give us some memories of your time playing at Royal Melbourne and what you think the keys will be to playing well around that track? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I think the keys around that track are going to be iron play. Certainly it's a position golf course. The ball can run out quite a bit, and playing into the right part of the green from the right angle is very key. You know, so you have to have great ball-striking capabilities to be able to work it both ways and control your ball and control the spin around the greens, as well. So that's personally what I think you need to do well in order to succeed out there, at least from my memories back when I played in the Australian Masters and the Amateurs. For example, I believe 18, at least when we played it, it might not be the same 18 when we play it this upcoming year, but it was a dogleg right, and you had to hit a cut shot. If you hit a draw on that last tee shot, at least from what I remember, it was very, very difficult to keep it in the fairway. Another one, I believe it's 7, at least the way we played it, I don't think we play that composite course, but one of the par-3s up the hill, heavily guarded by bunkers, and you had to be super precise with your iron play, at least on that hole, especially on that hole. So for me, as I remember it, the great memories I had, and I am a pretty good ball striker and iron player, that's what I -- you had to do well to succeed out there. That's quite honestly I think why I played really well when I went down there. Q. You're heading off to Australia as you mentioned. Obviously you played in a team event a year ago. What did you learn from that experience that will make you better for the run, if you will, when you head down? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, I think that voicing my opinions a little bit more, being included into the team just a little bit more will be helpful. I'm more comfortable now I would say in regards to team events. It's my first time. I didn't know what to say or do or whatever, but as I look back on it and people told me, you should have spoke up, man, if you had some beliefs and thoughts; that's why you're on the team. So hopefully as I get down there and see the golf course and see people's games, see how we can best fit the team together, I can hopefully help be a part of that. I obviously don't have the same experience, but I've been on the losing side of teams every single time internationally when it comes to match play events: Ryder Cup, Walker Cup, Arnold Palmer Cup. And I've seen every single time the reason why we don't succeed is because either two things: One, we aren't comfortable with the golf course and the way it plays, or two, we just don't match up games together very well or golf games, so how a player plays compared to someone else and how they like to hit certain shots, and for alternate-shot it's an incredibly important format you've got to do well in. You've just got to fit games together really well. Q. Who is it that you think you fit with? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, I don't know. That's the thing. You know, we've got to get down there and see what's going on and talk with different people and really have a lot of conversation down there about what would work best and what they're comfortable with. A lot of it's a comfort level thing. As I see it, people have to be comfortable hitting the shot. If they aren't comfortable hitting the shot, there's no reason for them to do that or put them in a place where they have to do that. You want people to be comfortable. As uncomfortable as it is to play for your team and for your country, you have to be as comfortable as possible and make the other player feel like you've got their back. I think as we get down there, I'll find out who fits my game best and vice versa. I don't necessarily know as of right now. Certainly anybody that hits it, I would say, pretty dang far and can putt it pretty well. I'm kind of I would say an average player in every facet, so you can really somewhat fit everybody to me, but I need somebody that's going to make sure they aren't hitting it necessarily out of play or even -- I shouldn't say that. I would actually say that I would like to have somebody that takes a little bit more risk and that would kind of fit my game because I know I can do the due diligence to make par or whatever no matter what because I am pretty consistent with ball-striking. I'd probably say somebody that's pretty aggressive and likes being aggressive and likes having the comfort of saying he can rely on the other player when they need to. Q. Obviously we've got the four picks, will Tiger pick himself, will he not, but I'm more interested in the other old veteran in Phil. If he doesn't play well enough to warrant a pick, do you see him potentially becoming the last assistant, and can you just sort of voice what he brings to the team, sort of the intangibles outside the course itself? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I hope it makes it. I hope he plays well and plays his way on and gets picked. But if he doesn't, I think he'd be great for the team camaraderie and what he brought to the table last year was great, and just an expectation that allowed us to be more comfortable, and he brought a lot of experience, knowing what to do and when to say things and when not to say things. I think he could be a valuable asset. He's obviously been on a lot of winning teams and some losing teams, so he knows the good and the bad, and it's never bad to have somebody that has good experience in that regard. Q. In your mind, what has made the U.S. Team so formidable the past Presidents Cups? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: You know, that's a great question. Honestly this being my first time, I don't know. I wasn't a part of those teams, and so I can't truly describe what has made us, I guess, better than the other team in recent times. So I honestly don't have an answer to that other than the fact maybe there's a little bit more passion towards it, that we want it more. Maybe the golf courses suit us better and we pick the players to -- in the right manner. I don't know that. That's what I could guess. Q. Bryson, you've been close with Tiger since you got out on TOUR. What's it going to feel like to play for him and how do you think he's going to be as the leader of this U.S. Team? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, shoot, he's been one of my idols growing up, and to be able to play for him as the captain is a lifelong goal already checked off the bucket list for me, so that's pretty special. And I'd also say, too, that I'm excited to have him as the captain. What he brings to the table, the intensity, the passion, the competitiveness, the drive to do the best he possibly can, you're going to see that out of him, I'm sure, and it's going to be a lot of fun to be a part of. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch, it's going to be a lot of fun to be a part of, and hopefully the speeches he gives before we go out is going to be pretty inspiring. I know they will be. Q. And then on the flipside, there's a lot of young talent and passion and excitement for the internationals with newcomers Abraham Ancer and C.T. Pan and Cam Smith. What do you think they're going to bring to the table? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I think -- I don't know what they're going to bring. I'm not in their heads. But I could certainly say from my point of view, from my standpoint, no matter how much they're going to want it, we're going to want it more. I know that. Q. Just looking at the World Rankings of the respective teams, obviously all eight of the American players in the top 20 of the world, a little bit lower than that for the internationals, and also the overall record of the event, do you feel the U.S. will be under some sort of extra pressure in that sense, given that you'll be heavily favored? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: You know, you can look at it from both ways, right. You can say because we're better, we should be a little bit more nervous or because there's expectations that we should win, we should be a little bit more nervous. It's about who handles the pressure of executing and going and getting it done, and that's all that matters is if we can go out there and do our job, take care of our business and execute our shots to the best of our ability, it doesn't matter what another team does. If you do that better than them, you're going to win. There obviously has to be a little bit of luck every once in a while, but over the course of competition, that's why there's days to play golf. You've got three days to play and you've got different formats, different things. You can find an edge in every little aspect, make sure that you're executing better than the other team. That's what's going to win it for us. Q. I think one of the things that the International Team is sort of calling for down there, too, is for the local crowd to be, for want of a better term, a bit more European Ryder Cup style in terms of getting very vocal, really getting behind the side and not so much behind guys they don't see often like yourself and the big Americans. Are you prepared for that sort of atmosphere? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, my whole life I've been an underdog. Everybody has told me this isn't going to work, that's not going to work, and so I thrive off of that and I'm going to love it when I get down there. It's going to be a lot of fun. I can tell you that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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