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NORTHERN TRUST OPEN

February 18, 2016

Chez Reavie

Pacific Palisades, California

Q. Is this a continuation of last week?
CHEZ REAVIE: Yeah, been playing well. Sunday, I shot 5-over par but I didn't play that bad -- but I still walked away feeling like I played terrible. So I had had some momentum coming into this week, and I've been striking the ball well coming into this week.

Q. So the grass can be kind of grabby, are you past worrying about your wrist? Are you through the woods?
CHEZ REAVIE: So far, so good. I've played a few weeks where we've had some crabby grass and sticky grass, but I've been working hard on my golf swing to shallow it out at the bottom to take the pressure off my left wrist and left arm.

Really it has not bothered me one bit and knock-on-wood it won't start, but I've been probably six months now with no issues, so it's been good.

Q. How much did you look at the leaderboard today?
CHEZ REAVIE: You know, I glanced at it a little bit but I always glance as it. I like to see who is playing well and which ones of my buddies are playing well. I enjoy looking at the leaderboard.

Q. It was kind of bunched for awhile until you provided some separation.
CHEZ REAVIE: You've got a couple par 5s that you can make birdies on and you have some tough par 4s. The key is to play some tough holes well and give yourself some looks on the easier holes.

Q. Can you talk about the changing conditions? Guys are saying it's much different today than it obviously has been because of the rain?
CHEZ REAVIE: It's totally different. When I played Tuesday, I hit -- you're pretty much landing everything in the front third of every green. No. 2, I hit 8-iron in on Tuesday, and today I hit 5-wood into the wind. It's quite a bit different.

But once you realize you can fly the ball all the way to the hole, you realize if you hit a good shot, it's not going to bounce and run away from you. Tuesday, you could catch a funny mound and it would take a bounce one way or another.

Q. Does it change the way you play No. 10?
CHEZ REAVIE: I hit driver on Tuesday. I came up just short of the fringe today with driver. When I hit it, I hit it over the green on Tuesday, because it was so much firmer. But you kind of pick your poison there, no matter either the tee shot is really tough or the pitch shot really tough, you know what I mean.

I actually hit a bad chip there. I was in a perfect spot and caught it just a touch heavy and rolled all the way off the green to the left. I probably missed my spot by five feet and I ended up 30 feet from the hole. I had an uphill putt, so even though it was not a tap-in par, even though I made par, I felt like I made birdie.

Q. After you won in 2008, did you feel less pressure or more pressure?
CHEZ REAVIE: You know, I self-impose more pressure. I started trying too hard because it was so much fun and you get to play in the good tournaments, the Masters, all the fun tournaments. So far for me, I started trying too hard and I then had some injuries. But I put more pressure on myself and I played worse because of it.

Q. Do you feel like what you did in the final of the Web.com tour, is that when the momentum started for you?
CHEZ REAVIE: I started playing better before that. I felt like my ball striking had come around end of the season. It was kind of, if I didn't finish in the top two, it was too late. But I felt like I was controlling the ball the way I wanted and I just needed to get the putter going.

Going into the finals, obviously that's a major step in the right direction for me confidence-wise and making putts just winning golf tournaments again. I had not won a tournament since 2008 and going out there and playing well, you know, contending pretty much every week, I built a lot of confidence off of that.

Q. I talked to an Olympian recently who won a Gold Medal and said the thing about the Gold Medal, no matter what happens the rest of my career, no one can take that Gold Medal away. Do you feel that way or do your self-expectations get in the way of having that certain cushion or satisfaction?
CHEZ REAVIE: It's obviously a wonderful thing to be a PGA TOUR winner. There are a lot of people out there who will never win on the PGA TOUR. However, I want to win again. I want to win this week. I want to win next week.

So that drive is never gone. I think I've kind of figured out how to channel it a little better so I can still perform at my best without putting all that pressure that I have to win a golf tournament.

Q. How do you do that? What did you figure out?
CHEZ REAVIE: You know, it's just patience for me and realizing, you don't have to hit every shot perfect to win a golf tournament. When I won in Canada, obviously I won and I didn't hit every shot perfect, but after I won, I felt like I had to hit every shot perfect in order to win a golf tournament and that's just not the case.

Q. Some players talk about wanting to win again because they doesn't want to be that guy, oh, one hit wonder. How do you feel about that -- have you felt at all dogged by that? It's obviously from people who don't know --
CHEZ REAVIE: Right, who don't understand it. I definitely probably thought about it more the first year or two afterwards, playing in all the majors and all that stuff. It's more of an incentive. It's like you get a taste of this candy over here, but you can't get it all the time, you know what I mean. I'm in all the tournaments one year and the next year I wasn't in any of them. It was like, man, I really enjoyed going to Akron, going to Augusta, being in all the majors. For me that's the pinnacle is to be able to compete at those tournaments. When you lose that, it motivates you to get back.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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