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ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANS

April 26, 2016

Jason Bohn

Avondale, Louisiana

MARK WILLIAMS: We'd like to welcome Jason Bohn into the interview room at the Zurich Classic. You're obviously a former winner here in 2010. This will be your tenth start. After the well-documented events of the last few months, I'm sure you're happy to be here. We saw you at the RBC Heritage and now you're here at the Zurich Classic. If you would just share with the folks here just how you're feeling and what the experience was like at RBC coming back.

JASON BOHN: Yeah, well, my feelings coming in, first, are just -- like I drove -- the shuttle drove down the main drive, and I got the whole chill bumps. It's weird when you come back to a place where you have won, even though it's been a long time. It's been six years ago, but you still remember every shot you hit and everything. I'm just really glad that I could have that experience again of showing up. But I feel great. I'm really healthy, and it's great to get started back at the RBC a couple weeks ago, and my game wasn't very sharp, but I think my game is getting a little bit better. I've been able to work hard on it. So I'm looking forward to a great week.

I mean, I love the great state of Louisiana to be honest with you. It's one of my favorite places in the country that we come.

Q. Jason, what were your expectations two weeks ago and what are your expectations now when you went into that tournament, now that you have one under your belt? What are your expectations?
JASON BOHN: My expectations the first week back a couple weeks ago were just to really see how I handled golf again, emotionally and mentally more than physically. I thought the physical aspects were all going to be great, and I was right. But I just kind of wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to be thinking about is my heart okay. I wanted to make sure that was all out and clear and that I was just focused on the golf, and that was the case. I really didn't put any expectations on what I did.

I was very happy that I got to play four rounds of golf. That was obviously a big start. The more rounds you can play when you take a little time off is good, even though it was a challenging weekend for me.

But now my expectations are it's golf time. I mean, I've got to get back on it. I'm still maybe slightly rusty, but I've been working really hard on my game, and my expectations are much higher this week than they've been.

Q. At the risk of asking you a clichÃ©d question, do you find you have a new outlook on life or golf or anything in that way since your heart attack?
JASON BOHN: Yes, I definitely have a new outlook on a lot of things in life. The little things, hugging my kids, telling my wife I love her, calling my parents, telling them I love them. Those things I think have really kind of become the big things to me. But I will tell you, in Hilton Head, I kind of told my caddie, I don't know where my game is, we're just going to have some fun, we're going to have a lot of laughs, we're going to enjoy it, and on Saturday I was cussing the game already. So I kind of was like, wait a second. I thought it would take more than three days for me to cuss the game.

But yeah, the bigger picture of life, those things have kind of cleared up to me, and golf is just my occupation, but I'm going to work really hard at it and stay with it.

But yeah, it didn't take long for me to get the frustrations that golf can drive you back.

Q. I know this is only your second tournament back, but have you had any experiences yet with people saying that your experience has encouraged them to get checked out or something like that?
JASON BOHN: It's unbelievable how many experiences I've had with that. And really to share a personal story with you, my mother after my heart attack went and she started to get herself checked out. She's a very healthy woman, aged 72. All her lipids looked good, everything was really good. She went in for a stress test a week ago Thursday, and they wouldn't let her out of the hospital. Last Monday she had triple bypass surgery.

If it saved my mother's life, it would be probably the greatest thing that could ever happen to me.

But she's doing well. She's recovering back home now. So it took a long time for her, and it's pretty neat because we have that -- I didn't have near what she had, but we both have heart disease, and so we can talk about it now. It's something different that we can talk about over the phone.

That was kind of a rude awakening to me that it is -- it must have skipped a generation. We didn't know we had heart disease in our family, but obviously we have it. I've learned a lot. I've had a lot of friends who have learned a lot from it, and now I'm going to really pay attention to my children, my nieces, and just let them all know that it's in our family, and you've really got to pay attention to it.

Q. I'm just curious if you've had to take any extra precautions or if your pre-tournament preparation is any different now.
JASON BOHN: The only pre-tournament preparation that would be different, the only thing the doctor said I cannot do is ride a roller coaster. That's it. And that's not -- I was kind of worried because I love amusement parks, and I said, is this going to be for life, and he said, no. But right now, they just -- I've got to watch my blood pressure. They don't want it dropping too much, and I guess roller coasters can do that.

But other than that, I am doing everything that I'm doing to try to prepare for golf tournaments, and I think my energy levels are up. My cardio workouts are much greater than they've ever been in my life, so I feel like I have more energy, and now in the past eight weeks my diet has been significantly different, and I think I'm feeling the benefits of all that, too.

Q. Any examples of your diet changing and how long your cardio exercises would be?
JASON BOHN: The cardio exercise workouts are about three times a week, an hour, but basically the way that we're exercising my heart is we're spiking it and then we're letting it calm down, then we're spiking it again, so it's kind of like flexing the muscle, and that's how we're dealing with it right now, and my heart has been doing phenomenal. It's always monitored when we've been doing it, so it's been really good.

Diet-wise, sodium, I have to eat a low-sodium diet. So lots more vegetables. My portion sizes of my proteins are probably a little bit smaller than they had been in the past, but I celebrated my 43rd birthday on Sunday, and I smoked a bunch of ribs. So I'm not giving it all up, that's for sure, but I'll definitely -- about 80, 85 percent of the time, I'll try to make the right choice.

Q. What are kind of your memories of the week that you did win here? What sticks in your mind?
JASON BOHN: That I putted extremely well, because this is a golf course that really if I looked at the statistics of my game, I probably wouldn't say that I would fare very well here. That week we had a lot of thunderstorms and a lot of delays, so the golf course played fairly long, and it's a very long golf course. So if it plays fast, I think my chances are a little bit better than if it plays long and slow.

But I mean, all the experiences, I came back -- I'm going to stay in the same hotel that I stayed in six years ago. I'm trying to do the exact same process as far as a practice routine that I can remember, and I'm just -- I can't say I'm going to eat the same foods, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to try to eat -- I'll eat less of the same foods, I'll put it that way, because there's so -- that's the only disappointing part about coming here for me is that my choices, my favorites that I was able to enjoy before, I might not be able to enjoy all of them this week.

Q. What were those favorites?
JASON BOHN: The smoked duck at NoLA is probably my favorite meal in New Orleans, along with the char-grilled oysters, which every night when I won started with a dozen char-grilled oysters before dinner. I can't eat a dozen char-grilled oysters every night now, but I will have some.

Q. PGA TOUR is not considered a roller coaster ride then, huh?
JASON BOHN: Yeah, yeah, the stress of golf is -- to be honest, I've realized it's not as intense as what I maybe thought it was. I was struggling to make the cut a couple weeks ago, and I thought, hey, this is a good part of stress for me. But what I realized is the most stress is the travel. You know, things that I can't control is what kind of -- if you do that 30, 35 weeks a year, you just get all stressed out about things that aren't even in your control.

That's the stuff that I've really learned to just try to let go of. If my flight is delayed, if my clubs don't show up, all that is fine. I can't control any of that. And the actual golf, I would say everybody, every player enjoys it so much, they don't feel the stress of it. There is stress there, but I don't think that they feel it like they feel the stress of having to wait at restaurants, just all the complications that go along with moving week to week across the country.

Q. Have you changed your goals for the season as a result --
JASON BOHN: No, my goal is to make it to the TOUR Championship. My goal every year is to win and make it to the TOUR Championship, and that is -- my ultimate goal is to make it to the TOUR Championship, so if I can make it to the TOUR Championship, I will look back on the end of the season and say I had a really good season.

MARK WILLIAMS: Well, Jason, we appreciate your time. Good luck this week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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