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AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM

February 11, 2016

Chez Reavie

Pebble Beach, California

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Chez Reavie, thanks for joining us here after an 8-under par 63-over at MPCC. Great round, especially on the back side today. 7-under. What was working for you and just your thoughts on this week here at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

CHEZ REAVIE: Yeah, so on the back nine, I just made some putts. I had a lot of good looks on the front nine and missed a couple of them, hit good putts and just stayed patient and was able to make the putts on the back.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Talk about the last couple of years, you played last year on TOUR, kind of more or less, lost a lot of your status, and then won one of the WEB.COM TOUR finals event and led that, the finals, on the Money List and basically became completely exempt for this year, which had to be a great feeling.

And you're in the PLAYERS Championship and some other events, but had to be a good feeling. But talk about kind of how your career's been the last couple of years. You had a wrist issue and surgery a couple years ago, so just maybe give the people a bit of flavor on that.

CHEZ REAVIE: All right, yeah, so I missed a full season. I had wrist surgery. Then came back last year on a major medical.

Struggled the first half of the year, I was kind of sore and still had some aches and pains. But just had to go through the reps and just learn how to play again and play in tournaments, and so I did that.

I was feeling good about my game, kind of the last three or four months of the season, and unfortunately, I had to go to the WEB.COM finals, but it ended up being a great thing because I was playing well and built some confidence and won a tournament and almost won the TOUR Championship and got full status back out here.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: We'll take questions, please.

Q. How would you qualify this day today, this round that you shot today among the ones that you've shot over the last -- since you've made your comeback?
CHEZ REAVIE: It was a great day. I've been striking the ball well for awhile, and the putter's been kind of hit and miss. And today, even on days I putt well, I still don't make as many putts as I made today.

So, that's kind of the key for me. My ball striking seems to be pretty consistent, so, if I can get that putter hot, I can make a lot more birdies.

Q. How do you feel about the course tomorrow?
CHEZ REAVIE: It's good. I haven't played Pebble yet this week. I played Spyglass, and I played Monterrey Peninsula. I have the most rounds at Pebble anyway, so I haven't really been out there yet. I'm going to go chip and putt after we get done here and kind of get a feel for the greens.

But it's a great golf course, it's always great to play, especially when the sun's out. It's just the most beautiful place in the world. So I'm looking forward to having a fun day tomorrow.

Q. We could all go back and check, but what is your history in this tournament? How many times have you played it? How well have you done?
CHEZ REAVIE: I really finished real high. I played well last year for a couple days and had a tough day at Spyglass. Spyglass beat me up one day.

But I like all the golf courses. I love it when the sun's out. Had a couple years here early, it was raining and I was like, I don't know if I can go back there, it's too hard. But when the sun's out, it's definitely a lot more fun.

Q. You had, what an injury? And you missed a considerable amount of time. I know I looked it up, and I can't remember, a couple of years ago?
CHEZ REAVIE: I played last season was my first season back. The year before that I missed a full season.

Q. What did you have?
CHEZ REAVIE: So I tore -- there's a sheath in your wrist that holds all the tendons that go to your fingers. So I tore it right on my wrist bone, so my pinkie tendon was popping over my wrist bone, and me not really knowing, I tried to tape it real tight which made it worse. I just pinched tighter against the bone and it would pop over. So the tendon started to tear, and I started getting shooting pain up into my neck from that tendon. So the doctor's like, if you rupture the tendon, you'll be done forever, so we got to get in there and fix it.

Q. How much time did you miss and were you able to -- and were you just able to do nothing but sit around or could you putt or anything like that?
CHEZ REAVIE: Yeah, so I was in a long-arm, I was in some sort of a cast for about five months. I was in a long-arm cast for about two months, and then they just kept chopping it down shorter and shorter and shorter. So.

Q. The left?
CHEZ REAVIE: It was my left arm. So I was in a fall arm cast, and then I think they cut it from full arm to the elbow so I could bend a little bit from the elbow, but I still couldn't straighten my arm all the way. And then they cut it down to halfway to my forearm, pretty much they didn't want any rotation at all.

Q. When guys start back, you played the game for a long time, is there a sense of like, what am I doing? You need to regain the confidence that you had. Is that the big problem?
CHEZ REAVIE: Yeah, so it's a few things. So, my swing definitely changed after the injury. So I have new misses. So at first, my miss was to the right. That was just being tentative, not releasing it as much.

Then so I started manipulating it from there. And so I had to just kind of figure out where I was and how I needed to approach getting better. So, I was getting steep and kind of putting my wrist at risk again after I started hitting it to the right, so I figured out another way to square up the club face and still be shallow. Because the steeper I am, the more pressure it puts right on that part of my wrist and the more I'll be prone to injure it again.

So I started working with a new coach last year, Mark Blackburn, and we pretty much just tried to approach the swing of taking all the pressure off my wrist as possible so that I can play a lot longer and not be one and done or have two years and have it start bothering me again.

Q. Was this a degenerative injury that happened over time or did it happen on a particular shot?
CHEZ REAVIE: So I injured it in college initially and I was in a cast then for a few months, but I didn't have surgery because I qualified for the Masters after winning the Public Links and if I had surgery I was going to miss the Masters. But then I came back and it didn't bother me for 10 years. Then, playing out here so much and, who knows, maybe I was getting steeper and putting more pressure on it and it just kind of got worse and worse to the point where I was taking Celebrex like Tic Tac's and it was horrible, so.

Q. I missed this, did you actually have the operation last year?
CHEZ REAVIE: Two years ago.

Q. They did operate.
CHEZ REAVIE: Um-hum.

Q. Okay. And it was your wrist, but your wrist wasn't casted or?
CHEZ REAVIE: Yeah, so, it was my full arm, it was from my hand all the way.

Q. And then it got progressively shorter up here, the wrist was still immobilized?
CHEZ REAVIE: Correct.

Q. I just lost it a little bit there.
CHEZ REAVIE: Okay, yeah, the wrist was always immobilized, but I started having some shoulder problems and some elbow problems just because I was in a long arm cast for so long so then it was like stages. They would take the cast down a little bit to work on my shoulder; and then it got to where I could start moving my elbow. But when they first took the cast off, I could only move my hand about that much, it was like frozen. (Indicating).

Q. Because sports is so physical, did you reach a point where, I can't do this anymore and I'm going to have to look for another job? Some guys do get that point in their careers. Or did you say, hey, I'll come back?
CHEZ REAVIE: Yeah, I was always optimistic. I definitely had some days there when I was in a cast and couldn't do anything where I was just like wondering if it was actually going to be fixed, because it's, the injury's not like an ACL to where they know exactly what's going on, exactly how it's going to heal, exactly.

So it was kind of like you have to play by ear for rehab and stuff, but the surgeon had done the surgery on a lot of baseball players before and had good results. So I was always hopeful but there's always that little cloud of just wonder and what it's going to be like when you do come back.

Q. Who was the surgeon?
CHEZ REAVIE: His name was Donald Sheridan in Arizona.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: All right. Best of luck the rest of the week.

CHEZ REAVIE: Thanks, guys.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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