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OMEGA DUBAI DESERT CLASSICJanuary 23, 2019Bryson DeChambeauDubai, United Arab Emirates BRIONY CARLYON: Delighted to be joined by Bryson DeChambeau here at the OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic. 2016, you came here and you won the Amateur Medal and come back three years later as world No. 5. How nice is it to be back here in Dubai? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: It's an honour to be back HERE and super excited. Dubai is an incredible place that I love coming back to, especially coming here two years ago and there was a Five Guys in the mall, I love it. The food here is great. Obviously played well on this golf course here a couple years ago. Didn't putt very well but I think we figured out why that is for this year. Looking forward to a really good week. The game is in great shape, hitting it well, putting it well. I'm honestly just excited to try and capture an international victory. That's really what I want to do this week. BRIONY CARLYON: You mentioned that. It's your first European Tour event for the year, and you've also had a couple other events obviously in Hawai'i. You said your game is feeling great. What do you expect from the year and what are you looking forward to? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I've set my sights on an international win, and then also majors, for sure. Coming off two Top-10 finishes not playing my best, I think there's obviously room for improvement and if I'm able to successfully improve a little bit here and there with putting and iron play, and make the correct adjustments this week that the course affords me, I'll be right there at the end of the week. I just have to finish the job. Q. I remember speaking to you when you were here as an amateur, and you almost had this conviction, this belief, that you will be almost in this place as soon as this time, in two years. You had that conviction. BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Sure. Q. Do you think you've achieved all that, or you're still not satisfied? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Not satisfied. There's more to learn. There's more to achieve. And for me, it's not necessarily about being No. 1. It's about knowing -- I mean, that's the result of all the hard work, right. But for me, it's more about understanding the game at a whole other level that's never really been done before. That's what I want to achieve is different insight into all the different variables that go through you having to adjust properly to the course at hand. Like this week, it's the greens. The greens are a big factor that we are starting to understand at a higher potential but it's taken us a little bit, and that's the reason why I struggled with putting when I came here two or three years ago or whatever it was, 2016. But now I think I have a better understanding of why that happened. It's trying to understand the variables more and more. That's really my goal of what I want to do each and every week. Q. There have been times when we have seen you putting water on the green -- BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Testing things, yeah. Q. Have you figured out something for the greens? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yes, I have and I'm not going to say. Yeah, that's part of the secret sauce. Q. You talked about your desire for an international victory. Going forward, do you see yourself as a global player, perhaps joining The European Tour? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, absolutely, I'd do a membership. That's obvious. There's plenty of players that have won worldwide, and I want to be one of them. So that's a yes. Q. The new rules that have been brought in, firstly, your thoughts on then, and with your scientific approach to the game, give us an insight to the way you're approaching things? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Pin in, is an easy one. It's statistically proven to be a benefit in 99 percent of situations. The only times where I'll pull it out is where if the shadow is right in my line because the flag is moving or there's too much wind and you can hear the flag, pull it back, not a big deal. But anything outside ten feet I'm going to leave it in. If I accidentally hit it three feet instead of two feet past the flag, it will stay in the cup. It has a better potential of staying in the cup than with it out. So that's on that one. You know, I agree with most of the rules changes. There are a few that are interesting. The spike mark one intrigues me, just because it's related to hitting a shot in the fairway and it goes into a divot, why is that not ground for repair just like a spike mark. Somebody damaged the fairway, not through natural, whatever. It was actually damaged by a player. So why is that not repairable? Why can't you get relief from that? So that's kind of the only one that's been like, eh, doesn't make sense fully yet. But I truly appreciate it. I love tapping down spike marks. It's great. It's afforded me the opportunity to make more putts now because of it. Leaving the flag for speeding play up is great. Ball drop is kind of a funny thing. I'm sure I'm going to drop the ball just for fun and see what works and whatnot this week and in future weeks -- seen a couple other good ones. Q. Is this an exciting potential for you to find a margin? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I'm always trying to gain a little bit of an edge in the rules. I'm not trying to go beyond the rules by any means, but just trying to go to the extent of it like everyone should be. If you're trying to be the best, why not. Q. You've achieved a lot in a short space of time, but looking back, do you think you were too hard -- BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No, I'm always hard on myself. If you watched me in 2013, I threw Gatorade bottle down, just threw a water battle down. It was only because I won by seven, not ten. It's just the way I am. It's who I am. I want to be the absolute best at every single point in time in my life. That's just me. I have a video of it, too. It was funny. It was at Creekside Golf Club. It's a public golf course back in Modesto California. Shot 70 the first day and shot 77 the second day, and I won my age, but not the overall and knew I had a chance to do it. Won by seven in my age group but wasn't satisfied. Made a bogey on my last one and missed a 5-footer. I don't define myself by winning margin. I define myself by executing to the level that I know I can. It's just the way I am. Q. What do you enjoy about this golf course? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: The driving aspect of it. It's so difficult out here to drive it in the fairway every single hole. You're going to hit it in the rough, so if you're a guy that can hit most of the fairways, you're going to have a great chance to win. You're going to putt decent. It's a good test for me. It's something that I love doing, executing drives really, really well. It's a good test of my ability to do that. I know I'm a great ball-striker, but see how good I am. It will be a good test. Q. You're here as one of the few Americans on The European Tour. Do you find seeing a lot of those faces from The Ryder Cup -- BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: You know, Ryder Cup, that's past time. I don't hold any grudges except Alex Noren making a 60-footer -- no, I'm just kidding. It's all past time and buddies now. We're going to go try to beat each other, but respectful, cordial, just like any other week. Q. The new rules -- do you think it will help the speed of the amateur game? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I think so. I think there are ways to do it. The problem, I think the biggest problem lies with the fact that -- there's two big problems. One, you're not that great of golf and you're taking a lot of shots to get at the hole or two, if you're walking course -- it depends on a person's walking speed. Most of the game is walking. So if you get a person that's walking really slow and somebody else is walking fast or vice versa and you have one guy, the guy that's walking, let's say, slow, to the ball, who is hitting first and you're the guy that's walking fast and you're past him. Let's say you're past him, you're going to get up there and wait for him so you've got to go through your process. It doesn't make sense when you look at it from that standpoint. There has to be a way -- for the amateur game, leaving the flagstick in is a good thing. Tapping down spike marks, I don't really know if it will speed up play at all. I think that 18 holes is a lot. It's four-and-a-half, five-hour rounds. I think there could be a time down the road where there are nine-hole tournaments, and why not? I know there's a history of 18 holes but if you want to keep people in the game, why not have it be nine holes. Two-hour competition. Think about every other sports competition, they are usually around two hours, 2 1/2 hours, most competitions. That's about enough time for somebody to really enjoy 2 1/2 hours of their time. Not four and a half hours and walking around on a difficult walking golf course in hot conditions. Not everybody is going to watch a full 18 holes, right. Q. How do you get the players to make sure that each one is walking at the same speed? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, that's another thing. Well, on the Tour, absolutely, that's a big deal. People don't realise, I'm a very methodical guy. Most people know I'm a methodical guy when I'm over the ball. But when I'm walking to it, I'm the fastest one walking. The time for me is measuring shots. That's where I make up everything, but if you have someone that takes their time but plays quick, takes their time getting there but plays quick, it's terrible for me because it makes me look bad. Whereas I take the same amount of time to play as the other guy does, it's just doing it differently. But the way it works out, I get hurt by it. Q. Your preparation -- BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Again, we try to be as prepared as possible but then we get over it and this changed and we have to change this and this -- I take more time to recalculate and figure it out. Q. Do you genuinely feel comfortable standing over a 6-foot putt to win a major with the flag in? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: If it was downhill, absolutely. Downhill putt, 100 percent. If I miss it's because I didn't aim it right or it wasn't the right speed. It won't bother me in a sense. If the flag was with me or the shadow was in the line, absolutely I would take it out. Q. You were having the last laugh with your methods in golf. Was there a time where you heard somebody ridiculing your method and you felt bad about it growing up, and have you sent them a message saying -- BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No -- Q. -- "I'm world No. 5"? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No, I don't hold grudges, except on my dad -- no, I'm just kidding. I love my dad. He's actually the reason why I became so passionate about the way I do things. So I don't hold any grudges on anyone. If anything, I realise that it's -- when somebody talks down on something, I will try and understand why they don't agree with it and go down that road, and once I figure out whether it's worth it or not, or their point is valid, I'll go with them or if it's not valid, then I'll keep going down that road, but I don't hold grudges. I just keep moving forward. I really don't try to, except with my dad. Just kidding. Q. Just a quick word on Tiger Woods, because he's returning this week. Tommy Fleetwood the other day said if he would put a bet, he would put a bet on Tiger winning a major. Do you think he will be challenging? BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Hopefully I have something to say on that. I would say that he's got a very good chance, absolutely. Augusta is obviously one of his favourites. Pebble Beach is pretty solid, he loves that place. But I think there's a lot of other good players, as well, now. He's spurred up a lot of incredible young players haphazardly because of him, he influenced me to become better. He influenced Jordan. He influenced Rory, a bunch of people, everyone out here. That's the cool part is that he's now seeing what he created, so it's funny (laughing) but he's still a 14-time Major Champion. He knows how to get it done, so it's going to be a difficult test if we're going up against him, but it will be fun. BRIONY CARLYON: Thank you for your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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