|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
FEDEX ST. JUDE CLASSICJune 10, 2015Ben CraneMEMPHIS, TENNESSEE DOUG MILNE: We'd like to welcome Ben Crane, defending champion of the FedEx St. Jude Classic here. Thanks for joining us for a few minutes. I know this is always a special place for you to come back to but certainly none more so than when you're the defending champion. You've had a chance to see the course. Just a few thoughts on being back here this week defending your title. BEN CRANE: Yeah, it certainly is great to be back and see a lot of friends and remember a lot of great shots. When you win, you hold on to those memories, a lot of those memories on Sunday of critical shots you made, things that my caddie and I were talking about, friends that were walking with us, certainly a lot of people that work here at the tournament we celebrated with, and it was just very special to win in our home state and then to have the connection with St.Jude like we do and the privilege it is that we have to go and be with the kids and be able to be a little boost of encouragement to them, and what they end up doing is encouraging us because the joy that they have in the midst of facing so many life‑threatening illnesses and just their perseverance and character and joy in the midst of that is something that is amazing to see. It's just great to be back. Q. Since your win here, your results haven't been what you hoped they would be. Where is your game right now? BEN CRANE: Yeah, so I've had‑‑ a few months after I left here, my right hip started bugging me, and I really thought I was going to have surgery on my labrum, and I was going to be out for six months to a year with that. But I had a great doctor actually in Nashville, Dr.Byrd, who just kept not operating on my hip, and I kept going in there going, hey, I really think we need to do something. He just kept getting it a little bit, a little bit better with a lot of physical therapy, and now my hip is healthy. That's just‑‑ I've probably only had a healthy hip maybe the last three to four weeks. I've been playing because I haven't been hurting my hip, but I also haven't had a lot of expectations. It's a year where I'm obviously exempt because of the win last year, so you know, we decided we'd continue to play through it, but now I'm just starting to feel healthy again. It's been really frustrating on the swing side because I've been working so much on my golf swing, I haven't spent as much time on the short game. I was in a similar place last year where I just came in with really kind of being defeated a little bit and discouraged and wondering if I was going to be able to get it back and persevere with a lot of hard work. It certainly came a lot quicker. I felt like we were making baby steps, but I jumped out to a big lead after the first couple rounds, and it's really hard not to think about winning when you haven't won in a while, you haven't been playing well, and you obviously want to capitalize on the situation. But the way it went last year, every time we had a weather delay, every time we went back out, every single time I either made a 30‑footer or a 20‑footer or I chipped in. It was just my week. It's pretty cool to just remember that. I had a pretty‑‑ I think I told you guys, but my wife gave me an encouraging message on Sunday morning. I couldn't sleep at all Saturday night, I was so nervous about leading the tournament and wanting to go out and finish it off. I had 30 holes to play and couldn't hardly sleep. Woke up at maybe‑‑ I was up at about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and I called my wife, and I'm like, look, your turn to pray, I'm done. I'm tapped out. I'm like, maybe if you start praying I'll be able to go to sleep. I was able to get just a couple hours of sleep, but I woke up just discouraged. I was like, this is no way to lead a golf tournament. So I called my wife, and I'm like, wow, man, I slept for two hours, maybe three, whatever. She's like, don't you get it, you've been so faithful, you've encouraged so many of your friends, and you've just gone through this rough season, I think you've gone through it really well, and you've continued to love other people, and she was really like‑‑ just gave me a dose of encouragement. She's like, now it's your turn. I really think today it's your turn. I'm like, wow, my wife doesn't normally talk that freely like that, and I was like, okay. And I was like‑‑ and I walked out, it's 5:00 in the morning, maybe 4:30 in the morning and I'm staying with Chesson Hadley and Cameron Tringale and Joel my caddie is there, and another couple friends, and I walk out, and I'm like, Glory to God, and I was just like yelling, like I was so excited. Just my mindset completely shifted after she did that. That was just a dose of encouragement I needed to go out and just grind away on Sunday. You know, just a lot of little things that I remember like that that are just super encouraging. Q. Do you get a feel for how the course is playing? BEN CRANE: I'll tell you what, I've been coming here a lot of years. Maybe I've played this tournament 12 times or something. I've never seen the golf course in this good a shape. It is absolutely impressive. They've done something to take a lot of the grain away, which I'm okay with either way, but they've done it, and it's very light on the green. The greens are as good a greens as we have putted all year. I would put these at or better than Augusta National. I mean, these greens are incredible right now. Everything, fairways are in great shape. It's just in phenomenal shape. The staff and the crew, hats off to them. It is something to see. I know we had some severe rain the other night, but it's drying up nicely, and obviously hopefully the rain will hold off and we can play a really firm and fast golf course, but I haven't seen anything like it in a long time. This is really spectacular. It's pretty exciting to go out there and play. Q. What was more impressive last year, your first 43 holes, the lead you built, or the last 29 holes, hanging on without making a birdie and still winning? BEN CRANE: Yeah, man, I didn't even know that stat. You know, I played‑‑ I felt like I played a little more conservative those last how many holes? Q. 29. BEN CRANE: Last 29 holes. Yeah, I chipped in on my first‑‑ as we go out, I had 30 holes left, I chipped in, and it sounds like no birdies from there. You know, I don't know, but I remember a conversation happening with someone talking to Chris DiMarco a number of years ago, and they were saying something like, yeah, but Tiger, he did this or that, he barely won, whatever, and he looked, and he goes, and he always barely wins, right? I'm like, it doesn't really matter how. A lot of times when I'm watching my friends or someone get to the last hole and they've got a lead, it's like, dude, hit 6‑iron off the tee, just win. Nothing else matters, just win. And so, you know, thankfully I was able to take that mindset a little bit like, okay, I can play a little bit conservatively. I thought I only had a one‑shot lead going into 18. I drove it right of the bunkers on 18, and Retief Goosen goes, "great shot." Retief doesn't say a lot, so when he said that, I'm like, maybe I've got a two‑shot lead. So I was like, okay, and then I tried to play it in the right bunker, was able to do that, and I felt comfortable from there, I could get it on the green, take a couple putts and win. My putt was probably a foot or six inches or whatever but I couldn't wait to hug my caddie, Joel, because these guys are in the trenches day in and day out. They're your sports psychologists, they're your swing coach, they're your friend. I mean, Joel a lot of times will come over and just help me get ready. He'll make me breakfast or whatever. He just does whatever he needs to do to help us get ready to play golf that day, and I just saw him be so positive when he had every reason in the stretch where I was playing terrible golf to not be positive, like he just wouldn't give up on me. And so just to be able to hug him and just say thank you, whatever, like great job, was really cool. It's something I'll never forget. Q. Since you brought him up, Tiger Woods, and also extolled the virtues of the relationship with caddies, in all of the examination of Tiger, do you think he misses Stevie? BEN CRANE: Well, I'm certainly not an expert on the subject. But certainly they played their best golf together. But Tiger has done it with Butch, he's done it with Hank Haney. He's played a lot of great golf with a lot of people around, and the only consistent thing is Tiger. You know, he's obviously making decisions based on what he thinks is best for his game. Do I think he misses him? I don't know. I know Joey LaCava is a heck of a caddie and a heck of a guy and great to be with, too. Q. You mentioned how you don't watch scoreboards. I'm curious to wonder if Joel gives you different advice, maybe based on where you are on the leaderboard. BEN CRANE: Yeah, we had that conversation before we teed off on Sunday last year. I said, you'll be watching and you'll be making decisions based on what we need to do. He said, absolutely, I got it. I'm like, okay. And so we got to the 17th hole, and really we didn't really have a lot of course management decisions to make until we got to 17‑‑ he obviously knows we were two up, we got to 17, and I was going to try to cut a 4‑iron in there and try to get to that right pin, and he said, hey, man, let's just get the ball on the green, let's just hit a 5‑iron to the left front of the green, try to take our two putts, and I was like, okay, I was thinking I had a one‑shot lead so I was thinking I was going to play a little more aggressively, but he was being a little more conservative, so that was like, okay, let's do that. And then certainly I got to 18, drove it in the right rough, which was maybe the perfect place to drive it over there right of the bunkers, and I looked down, and I said, do we need‑‑ can we make bogey here or do we need par, and he said, you can make bogey. I said, okay, let's play to that bunker over there. It's fun to be able to kind of play around‑‑ I don't know, you've seen so many champions over the years who have done just what they've needed to do, taken as much risk out of it as they possibly can. It was cool to be able to do that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|