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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM

February 10, 2016

Brandt Snedeker

Pebble Beach, California

MODERATOR: Like to welcome two time AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am champion, Brandt Snedeker. Always got to be good to come back and defend on course or courses that you've won on before. What's it like being back here this week.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, it's unbelievable. I would not have thought that the weather, a week of weather like we had last year, looks like we're going to have something pretty similar. So excited about that. Excited about the forecast.

The golf courses are actually in the best shape I've ever seen them. Firm and fast and kind of unusual for this time of year for these golf courses. So it should be exciting.

And obviously playing pretty well, so really excited about trying to defend my title this week. I love being here, I love the golf courses, and the way I'm playing right now should -- I got a lot of confidence coming into Thursday morning, so it should be fun.

MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. I thought it was interesting what you said a couple weeks ago about winning here last year and then really not doing much the rest of the year and needing to have some time to put back what was a little bit out of place, but not wanting to take time off. I wonder if you could talk about the balance of that, of needing to step away, not being able to step away because of whatever pressure you feel.
BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's tough. There's some times where you would love to have a month off to -- if you're going to make a change or do something, I think go work on it and practice it every day and get comfortable with it. And unfortunately the way the schedule works you just don't have that opportunity out here. You got to kind of either decide to make a change and live with the poor results for a while or try to ride out what you've been doing and fix it on the run. And it's tough thing to make a switch and know you're going to struggle and have a great attitude and fight through it.

Confidence is a funny thing. You start losing it out here and it goes away quick. So it's all always a tricky slope you want to -- you kind of want to or edge you want to ride on to kind of figure out, okay, what's the best way to do it. Should I wait to the off season? Should I go ahead and live with it for awhile or whatever.

Last year I tried to fight through it and make changes on the fly a little bit and didn't work out the best for me. But this off season I had time to do it and I had the inclination to do it after playing poorly second half of the year, so I did it and now the results have been way better.

Q. Would you do anything differently, if you could, last year?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: I don't know. It's hard to take month, it's hard to take time away from the game. Especially in the middle of the season. And make a change. Just because you don't -- it wasn't like I was playing terrible, I just wasn't playing -- I wasn't giving myself chances to win every three or four events or having Top-10s or whatever it was. It was just kind of one week I would have it and one week I wouldn't. And so it was tough to really sit down and say, now, I almost won Colonial, I should have won Colonial last year. I had a chance to do that and I had two top-10s in a row after that. So it wasn't like it was awful. But just -- it's something that I knew wasn't perfect and I needed to or wasn't going the right way.

So, but you can't take time off in June and July and August. There's just no way. Not with our schedule, not with the Majors, not with the tournaments we have to play.

Q. Couple weeks ago -- golf isn't supposed to be a fair game sometimes. But was there a part of you that, if you had not won Torrey Pines would that have been the measure of really not fair there?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: It would have been tough. If those guys got off at 8 o'clock from the morning the next morning and it was dead calm and nice, and I finished fifth and don't win, it would have been tough to take it. But in a way I would have looked at it that means that somewhere down the road I'm going to have one that I probably shouldn't have had fall into my lap.

For me to say that, after winning there in 2012, when Kyle Stanley had a three shot lead on 18 and made a triple bogey and I ended up winning in a playoff. To be fair it probably wasn't fair for Kyle. He didn't play that bad of a hole. That ball could have easily stopped and he could have won that tournament easily. So, things have a funny way of working out and you know, so it would have been tough to take for sure.

Q. The way you won, don't you think that's worthy of a bobble head?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: No, no. I got too ugly of a face for a bobble head doll, so I'll be okay.

Q. Two part question. First of all, when you won this event before, is there more of a, hey, I know how to do this, I know what's coming, kind of a feel to it, and second of all, given the challenges of playing with the amateurs and then you got the big crowds looking for the autographs and all that kind of stuff, how do you mentally prepare for an event like this?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Attitude on a week like this is huge. You got to have the right attitude. You got to embrace the pro-am format, which I love doing. I got a great partner I played with here for years. I'm playing with Davis Love this week, which will be equally fun, because Davis is one of my favorite people on the planet. So we'll have a great time together. I feel like I have a game plan, I know what works here. Winning here twice I kind of know what to expect and how to play the golf courses and when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive kind of stuff.

So, I'm excited about it. Starting on Spyglass tomorrow, I have a great game plan for there, I know exactly what I need to do to put myself in contention and it helps knowing that, okay, I'm starting on Spyglass which is typically the toughest of the three golf courses and somebody can go to Monterey or Pebble and shoot 8-under par and I could be quite a bit behind after day one and it's going to be okay to know that I've got a game plan and I've done this before and what to expect over the course of four rounds and not feel like I need to panic or get pressured into doing something I shouldn't be doing.

Q. Similar question, in that when you defend a title, you're just usually on one course, is it different approach when you have three courses?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Just your game plan's definitely different, because you have, you could not have three more different golf courses than we play here. We got a true links style in Monterey, we have got Spyglass which is one of the tougher golf courses we'll play all year, and then obviously Pebble which is completely dependent on weather. You catch a good day at Pebble you can get some birdies and shoot low. You catch a bad day and you're hoping to shoot par. So, weather really dictates how everything kind of goes here. Forecast we have right now is great, but that can change. It changes here all the time. So, hopefully the forecast kind of holds and it's just going to be a -- if the forecast holds the way it did last year it's going to be a shoot-out like last year because the course is in great shape and greens are the best I've ever seen them on the three golf courses and so guys are going to be making a lot of birdies, if there's no wind and the forecast holds true, so you got to be aggressive and get after it.

Q. What about these courses brings out the best in your game and could you talk a little bit about last year and what type of zone you felt like were you in.
BRANDT SNEDEKER: I think part of it is just the excitement of being here. Pebble Beach is one of the truly special places in the world. To be here and especially when you have great weather it's so exciting. I love coming here every year, been coming here since 2004 when I just turned pro when I played in the Callaway Invitational. I played there a couple times and then started playing out her on TOUR. So, it's been unbelievable to come back and play a U.S. Open here and love being in this area.

So it puts you in a great frame of mind when you show up and you're excited about being someplace. For some reason these greens and the way I play, I'm just so relaxed here, I don't let the poa annua get in my head. I love being on it. I love putting on it. Some guys kind of beat themselves up a little bit too much with it and you realize that you're going to hit some good putts that don't go in. I'm excited to start tomorrow. I'm excited to get after it, because I'm playing great and putting great and it should be fun to go out there and see if I can't get it done again.

That being said it's a completely new year. What happened last year and what I went through last year was one of the truly special weeks I had in my whole career because I only made one bogey in 72 holes. I don't expect that to happen again. So, I'm going to have get after it and make some birdies and try to limit my mistakes like I did last year.

Q. When you make a birdie Toby is the one that gets it out of the cup?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: He likes to do that.

Q. When did that start?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: I don't know. I think it's his way of feeling like he's involved, when he's doing that.

(Laughter.)

He started doing it last year, I think. We have always played a match together, he always does that. He's great at keeping the mood light and make sure we're having fun and don't get too serious out there. So we'll have a great time. We're looking forward to spending hopefully four days with him.

Q. The lawsuit by the caddies was thrown out by a judge yesterday and just wondering if you had any thoughts on that?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, that's above my pay grade. That's, I didn't know what was going on, I think everybody on TOUR had no idea where that was and how it was going. It was just unfortunate that it came to that, that the caddies felt like they needed to do that. Obviously, unfortunate situation, but I think all can I speak of is my caddie and my relationship and I know he's happy and I just hope that everybody can mover on from tan it's no more distractions, no more issues.

MODERATOR: All right. Thanks very much. Good luck this week.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Thanks. Appreciate it.

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