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SANDERSON FARMS CHAMPIONSHIP

October 23, 2018

Jonathan Randolph

Jackson, Mississippi

THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome two very special guests back to the media center here at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

Jonathan, thanks for joining us for a few minutes; Yodi, thank for being here as well. Just get us updated. We had you guys up here last year, so just a little bit of an update. I'm sure really people want to know how Yodi is doing, has been doing, and how much time Yodi spends on the road with you guys.

JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yodi is doing well. She had a good run here last year so she's allowed to come back, I guess. I had my best finish on tour the only time she's ever come to the media center, so it's good to have her back in here.

She's good. We were blessed to have a little boy, a little baby boy born in March. She's got a new best friend. She just doesn't know it yet. He's been grabbing at her and doing that you will fun stuff.

But, yeah, so she usually just is along for the ride. Her life is gonna get a whole lot more interesting when he gets mobile and can grab her. For now, she's got it made.

THE MODERATOR: How has life changed for you guys since the birth of the baby?

JONATHAN RANDOLPH: It's been good. It's a whole a lot more travel, luggage to travel with. Just my wife, momma, does a great job. Does a good job keeping him occupied and happy. He's getting big, too, so she's doing a good job. The guard dog is doing a good job, too. He's really protected.

THE MODERATOR: And one last question and we'll take a few from these guys. Speaking of the finish last year, if you could just take us back through that and just maybe a couple of the keys to what was going right.

JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yeah, you know, I've played this course a lot and I know what it takes to play well here. Really just takes a lot of patience. You go back to when Nick Taylor won. He made a ton of putts; he hit it well. But you always have to have patience and just wait until you start making a few putts.

The greens are so good you feel like you should make all of them, but they're just so tricky that you're just not going to. So I was patient last year and hit a lot of fairways. Waited for my run. Had one really hot run; shot that 29 on Sunday morning and came up a little bit short.

But that's the game plan again this year is just wait for it. Hopefully I don't have to shoot 29 on Sunday morning to make it very difficult.

Yeah, I know exactly what it takes, and I'm well rested. I had a long summer and I've been at home for a few weeks. I'm ready to go.

THE MODERATOR: I lied. I do have one more question. As far as this season goes, you're coming out on a medical; is that right?

JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yes.

THE MODERATOR: Explain that and what you're looking at.

JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Right, so basically I finished third in this event last year and got to Vegas and I couldn't scratch my right shoulder that next week. It had locked up; this left shoulder had locked up so much on me.

I had really bad tendonitis, and flared up again in the spring. It was just a battle all year to try to play and stay healthy. Took a little bit of growing up on my part. I'm 30 now so I'm getting old; got to take care of myself.

So I have one start and so this is it. So a lot of people -- the smart money was probably to got to full-field event and play a full FedExCup event, but I feel comfortable here. If I've got one shot to get status back for the coming year, I'd rather it be here in front of the home crowd in a place I've had success before.

THE MODERATOR: Okay. I like to answer. Take a few questions.

Q. Was the tendonitis almost like a week-to-week thing? Some weeks it would feel good and some weeks go out there and, Man, it's back?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yeah, so I did rehab all winter and I had injections, like everything we could to get strength in it and do all that stuff. I went to Hawaii and I finished like 30-something. Had a chance to play really well there, and I hadn't been playing much because I had been doing rehab and resting it. That's the only way to heal tendonitis.

And I got to where I was like, All right, I'm going to make a run this week in the desert out there at Humana. Took one swing and it tweaked it. I should've taken more tournaments off and taken a bigger medical; instead of just having one start I'd have more than that.

I was still playing pretty well and wanted to give to a rip. I just battled it for the next month or so, and then there was the trucks out here, the fitness trailers, and the guys that work in the trucks, some of the them are former -- they used to work for baseball teams. They know all about shoulders and stuff.

One guy just stretched it out in the right way, and now I know exactly what to do to maintain what I had need to do to keep it stretched out and where it needs to be. Unfortunately just took me a little while to get there. Now if I take care of myself and do it right, it won't flare up. As long as I don't do stupid things.

It's a very simple answer, but it's one of those things where if somebody was like, Yes, do this, and it would fix it, it wouldn't have been a problem.

But it was just a little bit finicky for a while.

Q. Couple questions about the dog. How do you spell Yodi, and what kind of dog is he?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Y-o-d-i and she's a Chihuahua. She wears her blue color, whatever we call this, her necklace, because I really couldn't do a Chihuahua with a girl leash and everything, too.

Yeah, we were looking at dogs that we could travel with, and my wife had Chihuahuas and I wasn't so sure because they're very skittish. I just got to the point where I was like, All right, I'm about to leave on the Web.com Tour and go to Brazil South America, and I wanted her to have a dog at the house. I just kept looking at these dogs and they looked like Yoda; eyes way off the side and stuff.

So that was in the back of my mind. When we found her, Yodi for some reason just came out. Seemed like a good dog name.

Q. So Yodi from Yoda?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Basically.

Q. Got you. How long have you had her?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: She'll be three years old in December. We've had her from two years and seven or eight months. She's been to almost 40 states. She's well traveled.

Q. When you were you were in here last year with Yodi you did not have your youngster with you. Now that you're traveling with both of them, does Yodi get jealous?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Oh, not even a question. She gets very jealous. So whenever the wife is holding the baby, for whatever reason she feels like she needs to come up and get held as well. She does a really good job in the airport and stuff. She doesn't get clingy or anything. She kind of like leads by example, which I don't know how a dog just knows to do that. She usually locks it up pretty good.

As you can tell, she's pretty comfortable. She doesn't get too skittish about much. Yeah, she's definitely gotten jealous, but also shows off like crazy when she knows he's watching and she's playing. She'll start high stepping around and doing stuff to make him happy, which is pretty awesome.

Q. How has having a child changed your mentality on I guess those days where you come home and don't have a great round; how quickly you forget about that when you walk in.
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: It's really nice when they're on the road with me to be able to come home or even have them by the 18th green or something. I didn't play well at the Web finals. To have them standing off the back of the last green after one of the most devastating four-week stretches of my career -- because I thought I was rounding into better form and I was swinging at it better. I just rust played horrible.

Just to have them there -- it's hard to put into words, you know, like what that'll do for you, but it's pretty awesome to have the little guy on the road. I don't know. Last year I said we were a traveling circus. We are legitimately a traveling circus now with the baby and the dog and everybody, but it's like the most fulfilling thing ever.

Q. Must be fun when you check in hotels.
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yeah.

Q. One big rolling show.
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: 100%. Airports are even the same thing. You know, three, four years ago I didn't have to look at a hotel room really. Just go on the app and just get the first king bed. Now I need a room with a couch in it so we can spread out and do the whole thing.

That's adulthood, right? I'm there. I think that's when you enter your prime. You start having responsibility. Supposed to start playing better golf.

Q. You feel like you're kind of back to yourself now? Now you understand your injury; you understand how to treat it. Like last year was it a thing like -- was it in the back of your mind when you were playing? Was it always in your head? So that's why maybe one reason down the stretch you just, I don't know what's going to happen today?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yeah, and I lost club head speed with it. You're going to change stuff to try to pick up club head speed, which is usually not good for your swing. I had never had to do it on this high of a level. You're playing against guys -- Brooks Koepka is hitting it 330 yards; you start carrying it 260, you better hit it real straight.

So it's nice to have that part of it back, and, yeah, just to not have doubt. I know what I have to do to trust it. You have to play good for four rounds. Like Canadian Open this year I had two of the lowest rounds. I was like 6-under through five holes or something at one point.

My good stuff is good. It's just getting the whole big picture together to play for four days straight is the only way you win. I know my good stuff is there. Just the further I get away from that initial like trying to figure out how everything works the better I've gotten.

Which is why those four weeks were so hard, because I thought I was really trending and starting to get there. There are just certain courses that aren't going to be good for you. I was really feeling good and I feel really good now. Just looking forward to a good week.

Q. Had you ever been hurt before?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: So I tore the costochondral wall right there when I was in college and had to take about four, five months off. Then when I was a junior I hurt my wrist.

But never at a high level. I've had some little stuff, but I had never had anything like this, that I was genuinely like concerned that I wouldn't be able to come back.

There is a list of guys that I know that are my age that have shoulder surgeries and I really just didn't want to have that happen. Like I said, I was playing good. I played so good here and then didn't play and then came back and played good in Hawaii. I finally think I'm getting over the hump of trying to figure out how to play this silly game. Now I got to get out there and be healthy and go.

So it's been a very humbling year. A lot of changes. I almost had to leave Honda in the middle of the tournament because we had some complications with the pregnancy. Just a crazy year.

I'm better because of it, but just a lot of variables and a lot of the growing up to do.

Q. This is your first tournament of the new season, correct?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Correct.

Q. Hoping to exhale a little bit? Hope it won't be as nutty?
JONATHAN RANDOLPH: I've already exhaled so I'm ready for whatever. You can bring on the nutty stuff, whatever. I had four weeks off at home, and I haven't been at my house for four weeks straight since we bought it over three years ago. It was an incredible four weeks off just being at home away from golf for a little bit.

And then just to be able to buckle down and get after it and come home to the family every night was very refreshing mentally. I'm in a much, much better place.

THE MODERATOR: How about here last year? Some players, they tend to get anxious when playing in an area where they're from or have ties. Obviously you have ties here. Didn't adversely affect you. How do you feed off that extra attention?

JONATHAN RANDOLPH: Yeah, this is the only course I'm a member at. Like I play some other places, but the fact that there is that and I had never played really good here. I lost the State Am. I was first-team all-American and about to go to the Palmer Cup, and came here and lost the State Am by a shot or two to Fletcher Johnson.

So there is always in the back of your mind, can you just not play good at this course. But I've played good here with the guys. I know how to play it. And then just felt like Aaron Rodgers telling people to relax all week. I had an average day on Saturday and I just kept saying, Well, I'm just going to be patient, which is the most cliche thing ever.

It was legitimately -- like I felt like I just had to be patient, and sure enough, 29 to open the day on Sunday. It's tough to put into words how that makes you feel. Yeah, I was right.

But at the same time, it hasn't always been easy at home. This is my ninth time playing this event. I feel pretty comfortable.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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