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TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP BY COCA-COLASeptember 20, 2016Patrick ReedAtlanta, Georgia THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome Patrick Reed into the interview room at the TOUR Championship. Patrick, you're No. 2 in the FedExCup standings. You're in good shape coming in here, obviously in the top five. In terms of the win, control your own destiny. A very solid year, consistent year. Can you just talk about the year a little bit and what you're anticipating here this week at the TOUR Championship. PATRICK REED: It's definitely the most consistent year I've had. It's just kind of one of these things that one of our goals coming into this year was to make our not so good weeks better and just -- we know, if I play really well that I could win golf tournaments. But at the end of the day it's also if you're not playing well, can you still salvage some things out of your tournament? Throughout other seasons, it felt like my good weeks were good weeks and my bad weeks weren't that great. So worked really hard on just consistency, fine-tuning things, what's causing those weeks to not be as good as we'd like. So I felt like all year we moved in the right direction in every aspect of the game. We've been playing really solid, just couldn't quite cap it off. And then finally, to cap it off at Barclays, I just kind of showed how hard we worked all year, and the work finally paid off. THE MODERATOR: Just talk about Eastlake, coming here, and the TOUR Championship and what you're anticipating and the situation that you're in at No. 2, it's a good spot. PATRICK REED: Any time you can be back here at Eastlake, it's always nice, especially this is the best position I've been coming in so far. This is my third year straight. To be in a position where I basically can determine everything -- if I go out and win the golf tournament, I win the FedEx. So it's just kind of one of these things, with how consistent and how solid I've played all year, I've put myself in a position finally coming here this week where if I go and play some good golf and beat 29 guys, then I take care of what I need to. But I need to focus on the process this week, finding a game plan, figuring out what I want to do on every tee, every hole because, if you start thinking too far down the road, start thinking about the FedExCup and what happens on the 72nd hole, then you start losing focus on what's going on throughout the round. So I'm just going to stick to the game plan I've had all year round and just kind of run with it. Q. Patrick, first of all, the fellow you're playing with has had a pretty good year. When he's got everything working, how hard is he to beat, A? And why do you think maybe this is the year things came together for him from watching from as close as you have? PATRICK REED: I think, if you look at all those guys -- Dustin, you look at Dustin, Bubba, and Jason Day -- when they're on, they're hitting driver on every hole and having a bunch of wedges in their hand. So they're 30 yards ahead of you. So they have a lot more looks. It's just kind of one of those things that when those guys are on, that just means you need to be even a little bit more on because you're not going to be able to go to par 5s in two irons. You're not going to have as many wedges in your hand. That just means you need to be a little sharper in all your aspects. I just feel he's been playing great. I saw it last week, saw it the week before. It's one of those things that I expect him to play well. I expect all these guys to play well this week. I just know that I need to go in there and play just a little better. It's one of those things, when you're playing with a guy like Dustin, especially when he makes it look so effortless hitting that 3 wood 290 carry and hits his driver 320 carry, it's just one of those things that you have to stay within yourself and play your game plan because it's not won off the tee, it's won around the greens, and at the end of the day, what the score is. Even though he can outdrive me by a ton, if I go and stick to my game plan and give myself a lot of birdie looks, if the putter starts going and I get putter hot, I feel just as comfortable that anyone does that you have a chance to win a golf tournament. Q. Just curious, you have a good year but you don't win the tournament. What does winning one tournament -- not that you're only going to win one this year, but just curious what that one win, how does that elevate your season? PATRICK REED: Well, it elevates it a lot. The worst feeling is to finish second. I did that twice this year. It's just kind of one of those things that any time you can take that hardware -- I think the biggest thing for me is it kept the run of winning a golf tournament every year I've been out here on the PGA tour. That's a streak I hope to grow and allow it to continue. To look at everything as a whole, it's just like looking at football. I mean, you have some teams that have been undefeated and don't win the Super Bowl. It's been a great year, but if you don't win the Super Bowl, it's a good year. Same thing in golf. You can finish top ten every single week, but if you don't have a win, it goes from a great year to a good year. So just having that W just turns a great year into a good year. Q. Patrick, you shot 67 your first look here a couple years ago, but you probably haven't gotten the result you were hoping for these last two years. What kind of gives you the confidence this week, or maybe just learning the course more or whatever, that you didn't have that first couple years? PATRICK REED: I think the big thing is the golf course has changed. They flopped the nines. So the start now is a little bit more demanding. The new -- the old 1, 2, 3, really the only hole you were ever worried about was 2. Because No. 1 you could hit driver. If you hit the fairway, you had sand wedge. If you hit 3 wood, you had pitching wedge. 2 is a 200-yard par 3. So that hole it seemed like it allowed you to get into your round. Now with them flopping it, you have to be solid right out of the gate because 10 and 11 are not easy. You go to 12, it's kind of a breather, but then once you get to -- after that, it just seems to kind of kick back up. Then also the changes they made this year on the back nine with lengthening -- it would be 16, 17, adding bunker in the actual driving area on 12, it just changes the golf course a little bit and makes you think a little bit more. The longer hitters aren't going to be able to take as aggressive of lines on some of those holes. On top of it, it also allows us to -- the golf course is a lot firmer and faster this year. Last year it rained, it felt like, every day. And the year before that it was playing really soft as well. It feels like a completely different place, which is good to me. I didn't play that well the past couple of years. But 365 days in between events there's a huge change, not only in yourself, but also an actual event. Q. Do you feel better going into this week than you have felt the previous two years? PATRICK REED: Oh, yeah, I feel great. I feel like my game's in a way better position. I feel like I'm in a way better position coming in. I feel more energized this year than any other year coming in. We feel great. We just can't wait for Thursday to get here. Q. Patrick, how would you describe your relationship with Jordan? What worked so well with the two of you when you went shoulder to shoulder? Do you expect to revisit that pairing next week? PATRICK REED: I think the basic thing is I grew up playing golf with him. So when he first came on the scene on the Tour, I already knew what to expect with Jordan. I grew up playing golf with him, being a Texas boy. So I just feel like -- he hasn't been on Tour long, and neither have I, but it's one of those things where we've been playing together forever. It's just kind of one of those things. I know his game. He knows my game. I know how to push his buttons to get him going. He knows how to do the same with me. And it's just kind of one of those pairings that just seems to really work. As far as next week, yeah, I'd love to play with Jordan. But at the end of the day, Jordan and I are going to talk to the captains and see what they think is best because you need to send the best team, but you also need to make sure it's the best thing for the team. Q. Just quickly, at the end of last year you went pretty hog wild, playing everywhere all over the world. Are you keeping that same sort of schedule for this year? PATRICK REED: I'll be flying. I'll be all over the place again. I love to play. And it's one of these things that I've always wanted to be a world golfer. I didn't want to just play in the States. To have the opportunity to play on both tours and have my Tour card on both tours, fulfilling that membership as well. So I'll be flying all over the world two weeks after Ryder Cup, we'll be heading overseas, start off in Malaysia and play China. Then we're going to run from there on the European Tour for a while and come home for a little bit and then back on the road. It's just kind of one of those things where I don't expect to have an off-season. I haven't had an off-season ever since I've been on the PGA Tour. Some I'm used to, and some I'm really excited about and can't wait to travel. Q. Is it difficult to put the $10 million prize out of your mind? Or is it something that, let's face it, $10 million is $10 million. It's hard to imagine not being -- not thinking about it, isn't it? PATRICK REED: Everyone knows about it. Every player knows that, if they go win a golf tournament, they have a chance of winning -- what is it, 11-point-something million? But at the end of the day, I'm just going to go out there and try to play some good golf, same mindset I had at Barclays and throughout the year. I knew at Barclays what I needed to do going into the week. I knew I needed to play well. I knew I needed to move up because it's the last week for Ryder Cup. You know those things are there, but I'm really good at compartmentalizing a lot of things. When I step up on that first tee, I'm stubborn enough to focus on, This is what I need to do. I need to hit the fairway and here, and stick to my game plan because at the end of the day, I know if I do well and I take care of myself, then come late on Sunday, there's going to be a pretty good chance I have to win Eastlake. If I do that, then ultimate goal is that helps me win FedEx. So the last thing probably on my mind is that there's $10 million at stake because really I'm playing golf tournaments to win hardware. There's two really good trophies I could win this week, and hopefully I can go out and have a chance late Sunday to do it. Q. Patrick, what do you think you have to improve to get more consistent through the whole year and climb to the top five ranked players in the world? PATRICK REED: Just win more. It's just kind of one of those things where, throughout the entire year, there's a bunch of -- if there's four parts to that round of golf, I did three well. The one that I didn't do well was okay. It wasn't great. It wasn't poor, but it just wasn't what it needed to be. If you see everyone who wins -- the winner every single week, they do all four aspects of the game well all week. The difference between 1st and 10th is literally just one little aspect. It could be a nine-hole stretch, that's it, that could literally determine a 1st place finish and a 10th place finish. I just felt like, when I'm kind of off on one of those aspects, I've figured out how to manage it where it doesn't just implode me to a bad week. I'm still able to salvage it, and if I get on a run and play a stretch really solid, then I still might have a chance. Q. So you don't think that playing less tournaments could maybe -- PATRICK REED: It could help. I mean, the way the whole ranking system is kind of set up, all the golfers say, all the guys I talk to say I play too much for my world ranking. The thing about it, though, is I'm a competitor. If I have an opportunity to go grind it out with some guys, I'm going to go grind it out. I'm not going to sit there, okay, I need to play 44, 47, 48, 50, whatever the number is that would maximize my opportunity to move up in the world. Really, it just means I need to play better every week if I play as much as I do, and I'm okay with that because then just the satisfaction of moving up in the world by playing more events, then that means I'm playing really well. So that's kind of more my mentality. It's not as much on building my schedule around the world ranking as it is building my schedule around winning hardware and going out and competing and playing against everybody. Q. You talked about making some of your bad weeks better this year and being more consistent. Is there one particular tournament where you think of a really good finish when all the facets of your game weren't there but you kind of just kept grinding and got a good result out? PATRICK REED: Valero? I finished second. I felt like -- for a day and a half, I felt like I didn't hit the ball the greatest. I felt like I didn't putt that well. Just kind of salvaged a couple rounds of golf, and come down late Sunday, I had a really good opportunity to win the golf tournament and was still in it. And there's a lot more like that probably, if I actually sat down and thought about it. That's probably the one that really stands out to me that I felt I should have won that golf tournament by 15. At the end of the day, coming down the last couple, I played -- I mean, I missed a putt on -- I made a birdie on 15, missed a good opportunity on 16 and a good opportunity on 17 and made birdie on 18. But Charlie made a heck of an up and down on 16, made a long putt on 17 and made a great up and down on 18 to win the golf tournament. But I felt like earlier that week, I just left a lot out there to really not put myself in that kind of situation. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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