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MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 2, 2018

Wesley Bryan

Augusta, Georgia

THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Wesley Bryan to the interview room. I'm pleased to welcome for the first time Wesley Bryan. Wesley, you've had quite a memorable past 12 months. You won your first PGA tournament, you're competing in your first Masters Major Championship, and you're now appearing in your first Masters. Why don't you tell us about how you're feeling a little bit on the inside about all these wonderful firsts.
WESLEY BRYAN: Well, taking it back to the Heritage, my first win, it was obviously extremely special to be able to knock down my first PGA TOUR victory on Easter Sunday, was obviously extremely special to me. Now having to wait 51 weeks to get here for the Masters has been a long wait, but it's one that I'm definitely looking forward to.
THE MODERATOR: Well, we are just so glad to have you here. While this is your first time competing, you're no stranger to the Augusta National. You grew up just down the road in Columbia, South Carolina. You attended the University of South Carolina. And as a resident of Augusta, you've had the opportunity to attend the Masters and to play this course.
How have your experiences, those experiences that I just explained, changed how you have prepared for this, your first Masters?
WESLEY BRYAN: Well, growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, it's obviously just a little bit down Highway 20, and I remember coming to the Masters, coming with my dad pretty much every single year since I could remember and all the memories that you get from here. Like I remember Billy Andrade at one point just flicking me a golf ball behind the 8th tee box. And those are little memories that they just don't go away.
Now that I've actually been living in Augusta and actually spectated the last year, came out and watched a few of my buddies. I followed around Russell Henley for a little bit and Jon Rahm in the afternoon, and a week later was when I won to punch my ticket to come here.
And it's been nice living just a few miles down the road and being able to get over here and play a few practice rounds and get a little more comfortable on the golf course and learn all the little nuances. It's been extremely helpful to have a lot of the local caddies come out with me and walk around and kind of show me where all the pin placements have been in the past and certain putts that break different ways than what they would appear to break to the naked eye.
The preparation has been thorough to this point, and got a couple more days of it, and hopefully come Thursday I'll be ready to jack it in the ground.
THE MODERATOR: That's a great story and a great introduction. Let's take a few questions now.

Q. Can you go through a little bit about the five‑week break you have taken before the Masters.
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, I got my manager back there who is shaking his head laughing, Andrew Kipper, who highly advised me not to take five weeks off leading up to it. But I felt like I was going in a direction that I wasn't seeing any results for the first half of the year, and I knew that I was really close.
And I've never been one to play my way into form. You'll see guys like Patrick Reed go out and play nine or 10 events in a row and get a little bit better every single week. I feel like I'm one of those guys that has always done really well off of rest. And even going back to the WEB.COM TOUR, I remember winning my first WEB.COM event off of five weeks' rest, so‑‑ and same with the Heritage. I think I had two or three weeks off before that and won there, and did it one other time on the WEB.COM.
So I'm one of those guys, I kind of know what I got to do to get better and I don't need tournament golf to round me into form. So I've been working really hard these last five weeks. It's definitely not been a vacation by any stretch, probably worked harder than I've ever worked in my entire life to get ready for this one event.

Q. I know when you've been playing around here, I heard you may have shot a 60 out at Bartram Trail and that Jon Rahm may be staying with you this week‑‑ or last week and might have almost beat your record. Can you talk about that and how you have been playing in your practices.
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, I've been playing really well. These last five weeks have been, like I said, a lot of time of practice, a lot‑‑ I spent a lot of time over at Bartram Trail and Forest Hills. Those are the two places that I call home here in Augusta as far as golf is concerned. And they're not overly difficult tests of golf, and Bartram always has some of the best greens in the entire state, in my opinion. So it's one of those golf courses that you can eat up when you get it going.
And I took Jon over there this past week, he stayed with me all week, and ran him through the‑‑ probably one of the more fun golf courses to play here in Augusta. And he came up one short of my course record‑‑ so it is still safe‑‑ and he shot 61. I shot 60 out there a couple times, just knocking on the door, I had a brutal lip‑out for 59 on the last hole the last time we played. But it was a lot of fun, just playing golf recreationally for five weeks, not having to worry about tournaments and getting ready.
So hopefully the process that I've went through these last five weeks will pay off.

Q. Can you talk about your best memory of this golf course and also your first memory of this golf course?
WESLEY BRYAN: My first memory of the golf course? I remember it was pouring‑down rain on a Monday when I first came. Dad can probably vouch for that. It was probably in 1996 or '97. And like I mentioned earlier, Billy Andrade popping me a golf ball back on the tee box, I remember he marked his golf ball with a pencil mark. It was back when you could put a little dot in a balata golf ball and it would make a little hole in it, and that was his identifying mark.
But, I mean, I just remember my dad giving me a twenty dollar bill and saying: Here, this is your food money for the day. And I would spend it all up before noon on pimento cheese and egg salad sandwiches, and I would have to go walking back just to ask him for a little dessert money.

Q. When you talk about working as hard as you ever did in your life, can you give an example of how much time that is in like practice and how much time‑‑ how many rounds of golf did you play in the last five weeks, in other words?
WESLEY BRYAN: I probably played‑‑ shoot, I probably averaged six to seven rounds of golf a day for the last four weeks, I would say. I took the first week off. I mean, a week. So not a day. There were plenty of days where I played 36 or 54 holes. So I took‑‑ I was‑‑ I put a plan together for March of all the practice goals that I wanted to do, to accomplish, and I wanted to take‑‑ I took five days off total. So for the entire month I guess I worked 26 of them to get ready. It's basically I look at it as a job from 9:00 to 5:00 is what I would invest each day, and that includes time spent in the gym, that includes time spent on the golf course and time planning out what I wanted to do the next day.
So just looked at it as a regular job. And there was some days when it was cold and windy and I didn't want to do it. But got pretty lucky on the weather, I would say, overall, in March.

Q. We hear about the 60. What's the worst score you shot in those six to seven rounds a week?
WESLEY BRYAN: I would probably say the worst I probably played was‑‑ I remember I shot, maybe the day I kept score out here, 4‑ or 5‑under on this golf course was probably the worst number that I put up in the last five weeks.
I got a little bit of a heater and probably should have been playing a few tournaments, because I felt like I was in the best form I've been in all year, but I knew that there was a bigger goal in mind. I would rather be slipping on a Green Jacket than holding another regular PGA TOUR trophy, if I had to trade the two in.

Q. There's a lot of, as previously mentioned, hype and excitement for your debut here at Augusta. But the pressure isn't necessarily from the outside sources, I'm sure it's internal, to win. How do you handle the eyeballs of being the local favorite, one of the fellow supports, especially from out the Columbia way for the people that make the trip to then putting those expectations on yourself as you get ready to prepare for them to try to get victory?
WESLEY BRYAN: It's one of those things I've been working hard. I just‑‑ I want to get in contention. I want to have a chance on the back nine on Sunday. That's the goal every single week you tee it up.
So the expectations are the same every single week, and here you've got all the best players in the world, and it's a stronger field than normal and it's a smaller field than normal, so it's the same mentality you take each and every week.
And as far as adding extra pressure, I don't feel like there's any extra pressure to perform out here because it's not like going into the tournament I'm one of the frontrunners to win. I might be one of the local guys, but I've kind of got the chip on my shoulder a little bit seeing some of the odds to win.
And I would like to think personally that I have a little better odds than that, but it's just another golf tournament. You want to try and have a chance to win on Sunday on the back nine.

Q. When you were here last year and walked around watching Russell and them, how many times did the thoughts of playing in a tournament go through your head? And, secondly, what is this yearlong wait really been like each day and night?
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, I came out to the tournament to, one, I had only walked around as a spectator. Never in the past few years did I actually have a realistic opportunity to come into playing the event. So last year being on the PGA TOUR, knowing that‑‑ not that it was likely, but that there was a better chance to be competing, I was looking at the golf course from a different perspective, just trying to see, to go back on‑‑ right behind tee boxes and kind of see the lines that people were taking and ‑‑ or especially around the greens where people were missing.
And I was looking at it from a different lens of instead of enjoyment, I was actually looking at it as preparation. So going out there I had a little more purpose watching than I had in the past. And now being able to now play it half a dozen to a dozen times leading up to it has also really, really helped.

Q. You just answered part of that. I was going to say, when you played this morning, what would you estimate how many rounds is that you've had out here, and how do you make up for that relative lack of experience?
WESLEY BRYAN: It's probably 10 to 12 or so that I've logged out here. On a couple of the days I played more than 18 holes, and I think, like I said, it goes back to having some of the local caddies out here that have been out here for years and years and years kind of guiding me around and showing me where the pin locations are and what certain putts can be kind of deceptive, whether that be speed‑wise or breaking‑wise.
Obviously I don't know if you guys had anything to do with it, but putting up the final round highlights on YouTube from all the Masters leading back to 1970‑something, or whenever it was, has been really helpful. I've watched a lot of YouTube videos going back and seeing how guys play the course on Sunday, and that's also been part of the preparation.

Q. I think everybody knows your trick‑shot background. During your practice rounds here, how much have you incorporated that into trying some of the more memorable shots in Masters history?
WESLEY BRYAN: I've definitely hit Mark O'Meara's putt to win a lot of times from over there to the right on No. 18, as well as Phil's obviously on No. 16. I went back to see where Tiger was. I think that green's been maybe reshaped just a little bit. It makes it a little bit more difficult for it to trickle and go in on the last revolution. Now it probably is going to be going in with a little more speed. But I've gone down to where Bubba hit his shot, but I feel like that's hopefully not a place that I'll be. I don't think I can even get it down there even if I wanted to.
So but, yeah, going back and watching all the highlights on YouTube has definitely sparked a little more interest.

Q. Which was the hardest in your opinion?
WESLEY BRYAN: Well, I would say putts to win are probably the hardest. But just shear difficulty, like there's a lot of stuff that could have gone wrong on Tiger's chip shot there, it pretty much came to a stop two different times. But that one's probably the one that's more fresh in everybody's mind and I would say the most memorable shot ever hit at Augusta National.

Q. If you would talk a little bit more about the hometown aspect here and how you're separating the hometown distractions from the golf this week, and if you had a chance to go down and look at the scoreboard with your name and your hometown on it along the first fairway and what that might have been like for you.
WESLEY BRYAN: I haven't got a chance to look at it. Maybe‑‑ shoot, I didn't know even know that they did that. So I'll take a peek tomorrow.
But there's obviously more distractions. Trying to configure the ticket situation has been something that's been a little more difficult being so close in proximity here. But my wife has done a really good job of managing that side of it.
It's just another golf tournament; I'm going to treat it as such. I'm going to go to bed early. I'm going to wake up at the same time. I'm going to fix my coffee and scramble my eggs and go to the golf course.
So once I get out on property, it's back to work mode. You don't really have‑‑ it's a week where you don't have a pro‑am to worry about, so you're given a little bit more preparation time Monday to Wednesday, and just going to work from 9:00 to 5:00 like I usually do and hopefully be ready on Thursday.

Q. I know that everybody refers to the changes that they made here a long time ago as Tiger proofing this golf course, but if I'm not mistaken, former chairman Hootie Johnson sort of referenced your family as having something to do with that. Could you tell us a little bit about the story about I guess playing or your brother playing here as a kid and what kind of impact that had on their decision‑making?
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, I think it was probably more George proofing at the time than it was Wesley proofing. I wasn't having lob wedges into holes No. 17 and I think‑‑ shoot, I forget what the other one was.

Q. 11?
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, No. 11 I think George had a little wedge into it. So he always hit the ball farther than I did. And playing with Mr.Johnson was obviously a treat, and seeing his reaction to where George was hitting some of those tee shots is pretty funny as well.

Q. How old were you guys then?
WESLEY BRYAN: Well, I was fresh off a knee surgery, so I was pretty much on the injured reserve, but, shoot, that was probably in 2003. That would be my guess. Is that right, Dad? Close. 2004, maybe.

Q. With this being such a long course, early in the season you were struggling with your driver, you took it out of the bag for the Sony Open. Was that part of the reason why you took this long break, and have you got your driver where you want it?
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, that was part of the reason. Just was not very comfortable off the tee, and started seeing glimpses of it turning around. Even though I missed the cut at Riviera and at Honda, I was definitely making strides in the right direction.
And these last four or five weeks I've been really working on turning the ball over a little more right‑to‑left. Moving forward I felt like it couldn't get any worse than where it was. Been playing a cut the last couple years off the tee, and statistically it just hasn't been very good. So I felt like it was one of those changes that needed to happen, and that was also part of the reason taking four to five weeks off, getting really comfortable moving the golf ball the other way. And it sets up better, this golf course, for a draw, in my opinion. There's definitely room to fade the ball if you're one of those guys.
So it's not like I would go down the list and say you have to hit the ball right‑to‑left to contend out here, because I don't think that that's the case. But that was definitely a factor in taking that time off, getting more comfortable with the driver.
And to answer your second part of the question, yes, it has gotten a lot better.

Q. Curious, what was‑‑ do you have any idea what the fate of that ball that Billy threw you on 8 as a kid?
WESLEY BRYAN: What was that again?

Q. Any fate of what happened to the ball that Billy gave you on 8 as a kid?
WESLEY BRYAN: Oh, well, it went into the ‑‑ hey, Susan, how are you doing? ‑‑ it went into the "my cool stuff" drawer, and it‑‑ stuff that went into the "cool stuff" drawer seemed to disappear over time when I moved a couple times and I first got married. So I'm not sure exactly what ended up happening to that golf ball. But I bet it's somewhere if I looked really hard I could find it. I remember it was a Titleist TOUR balata 3, I believe.

Q. Curious how you and Jon got close.
WESLEY BRYAN: So right when I got my TOUR card from the battlefield promotion, I played at John Deere and met him there, because I think that that was maybe his rookie year as well, or technically his rookie year.
And then we got paired together that next week at Wyndham. And our third withdrew, so we were in the last group off Thursday and Friday, and we were playing at about five and a half hours, just two of us. So we had a lot of time to hang out.
And from there, just really, really good guy and started spending a lot of time together, and now we're officially partners. We're more than just friends, we're partners.

Q. Will you elaborate on that?
WESLEY BRYAN: At the Zurich Classic.

Q. In the 10 to 12 rounds that you've played this course now in the last few weeks, how much better do you feel you know the course, and what's the best piece of advice one of the local caddies or whoever gave you about this week?
WESLEY BRYAN: I would say I'm way more comfortable now than I was five weeks ago on the golf course, and I would say some of the best advice where just some putts on No. 13 that‑‑ like that back right section, it filters a lot towards the front of the green whereas it looks like it should just be going straight down to the hole. And then there's another pin that's over there on the middle left when you get behind that hole, it turns away from Rae's Creek, which is very counterintuitive.
And I've had probably three or four different caddies, and they all have been fantastic.

Q. When you won Heritage, it was obviously a big moment for you when you broke the hoodoo or whatever it was for the local guys. Have you imagined what it would be like to actually win on this stage?
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, it would be nice. There's no doubt. You would kind of cement yourself in Masters history. And it's‑‑ I would say across the board this is the one that everybody wants to win. This is the one golf tournament that you don't even have to be a golfer or know anything about golf to know about the Masters. So it runs way deeper than just the sport of golf.
So that Green Jacket, it's an iconic sports memorabilia item. So it's definitely one that would look really good in my closet, so hopefully we can knock it down on Sunday.

Q. Have you scoped out the nearest Taco Bell?
WESLEY BRYAN: Oh, yeah, there's like three or four of them that I'm a frequent visitor to. I would say the one on Wrightsboro is the one I go to the most, but there's one right down the road on Washington as well.

Q. I understand your caddie is really good with the yardage books, he's a terrific artist. Do you see that when you're looking at that book?
WESLEY BRYAN: Yeah, Willy is a heck of an artist and he free hands all of it. He's got a side business where he goes out and surveys golf courses and hand draws yardage books. So that's one of his hobbies, and it's also been a nice little side business for him. And he's I would say above average when it comes to detail in yardage books, so the one this week I would say looks pretty good.

Q. How much of an advantage, if any, do you imagine that might give you?
WESLEY BRYAN: I feel like it still comes down to whether I hit the shots or not. That book can be really, really pretty and with really good handwriting, and I don't know if that will exactly correlate to better shots, but hopefully it does this week.
THE MODERATOR: Well, Wesley, we all appreciate so much your coming in and having this interview, and we all wish you the best of luck this week.
WESLEY BRYAN: Thank you so much.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
WESLEY BRYAN: Thanks, guys.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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