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THE NORTHERN TRUST

August 11, 2019

Bryson DeChambeau

Jersey City, New Jersey

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Crawling back for more.

Q. How would you describe your brief conversation with Brooks before the round?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: It was awesome. It was actually fantastic. I appreciate what Brooks did. I have high respect for him because he did that. There was one instance he said in Abu Dhabi, and he said, "Yeah, I said something about that, but it was in general and got blown out of miss proportion."

It was great. I said, I think we got to start internally so we don't have these issues come out in public and it creates a bad image for the PGA TOUR. We never want that. So it was great. We had a great conversation, and have a new level of respect for him.

Q. What was your impetus?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Impetus. Don't know what that is.

Q. What was your motivation? He said he only mentioned your name once at some point. What did you want to clear the air with him about?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I just pretty much told him, he said a lot of things about slow play out in the public, and you guys have asked him that and he has the right to say things just as I do. I have heard him talk about slow play before and he has mentioned my name before, and I just wanted to clear the air. Make sure that nothing was of any importance after, and he's got respect for me; I have respect for him. So no issues.

That's what I love. That is what we all should be doing as human beings is doing our best to make it right with each other.

Q. Have you had a chance to talk to anyone else besides Brooks?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No. Next week we'll have conversations internally and make it right internally. There should be no stresses among competitors out here. We're all trying to provide great entertainment and do our best to play well, and clearly as you saw today, I don't know if anybody watched, but there was never any question. We were always waiting on the guys in front of us.

So that's one of the things that I appreciate when I have a playing partner that's of the same thought process and idea; that, you know, if we need to make more time in certain cases, absolutely, there's no issue. But when we need to walk a little faster to keep pace with them, yeah, let's go; let's do it.

Q. Do you feel like the two of you still have more to talk about?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No. We're going to be playing on a lot of teams together, I hope, and you know, it's better to get stuff out now and make it right so we go into these team competitions wanting to do our absolute best and not have anything else happen.

Q. Brooks said golf is one of the most nonconfrontational sports compared to all the other sports out there. Why do you think it is that golfers have such a tough time confronting other golfers about issues?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Ego. Ego. It's people's ego or what they have behind them; that they present themselves in a certain way. It's tough to sometimes jump over that. For me, my struggles, my ego is sometimes not knowing things that. Gets me a little defensive all the time. When I know things and I understand things, well, this is just what it is. I try and be reasonable as much as possible in every situation. You know, I just don't -- I think that the confrontation part in the game of golf, I don't know. Just we don't do that. We go play our games and we want to do our absolute best in our own way. It's an individual sport. That's the main reason why. It's not like we are on a team and we have internal whatever.

But again, we are all out here trying to provide the best entertainment possible, and so when you have these conflicts, they just need to be resolved and there's no issue. Just like that, air is clear, and ready to go next week and hopefully play well and beat them next week. We're all trying to beat each other.

Q. How tough was this week, trying to deal with all the storm that came from this, and trying to clinch your spot on the Presidents Cup team?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, it's definitely difficult. It was frustrating honestly. It was a big deterrent. Last night. I'm just thinking to myself, man, this is golf. You look at all the guys on social media and saying, you need to pick it up, you need to pick it up. I'm just trying to explain to them, and say, hey, how about you look at the full story and see what actually happened during those instances.

Yes, on 8, I did take a little bit of time. We're warranted to do so, as long as we are under the pace of play. And sometimes that happens. That's a 1 percent issue and it happens 1 to 2 percent of the time out of me and it happens to a lot of other people out there, as well.

One quick thing to note, too, pretty interesting that I thought about last night is how long does it take me to tap out? Two seconds? Three seconds? Go and hit it in. If you take an average of those two shots, it's like five seconds -- or excuse me, excuse me. An average of those two shots, it's an accumulative total of -- say I took a minute, a minute five, there you go; 33 seconds for two shots.

So that's kind of where my brain's at. It's like there's more to it. We need to resolve some things. I think that walking out here is a bit of an issue. There's a tradition in the game of walking and I understand that, but if we want to make the game faster, there are multiple ways that we can do it.

Q. It seems like yesterday you were responding to people directly.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Absolutely.

Q. What was your thought process? Why did you do that?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, everybody says not to respond to people on social media, but I'm not about to let my reputation be known as a slow player. I just don't appreciate that. I think it's unfortunate because people don't see what I do day-in and day-out, high-fiving the kids, saying thank you to the fans and volunteers out there, and they just look at all the negative stuff. It time for people in the world, in general, to start looking at the positive things people are doing in life.

And so for me, I feel like if I can just at least keep responding, it shows people that I care because one of the biggest issues I think of not responding is it looks like the guy just doesn't care and now you're labeled as that. It's like, I don't want to be labeled as that because I feel like I'm not doing that. Yes, I'm taking time on certain shots, but that's not 100 percent of the time.

So just to let people know that I appreciate everybody's input, the support out there from the fans. Everybody supporting me was fantastic today. There was maybe one or two people that said something about slow play, and you had guys cheering me on right after they said that. Overall I have tremendous respect for my fans and the fans here in New York. They have been incredible to me the past two years. I don't want to take anymore time away from the people leading the event. There's a lot of guys out there that are playing some great golf. I didn't do my best out there today, but this tournament, the FedExCup Playoffs, are about those guys playing and doing their best, not about slow play.

Q. Do you think guys are looking at you a little more closely because you do so many other things your own way?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, 100 percent. I think there's definitely something to that. Look, I've gotten a lot of adverse commentary my whole entire life because I've always done things a little different. It's just the way it is. Even growing up when I started doing all this stuff, people were like, why are you doing this? What's the reason? There's no reason, you're just taking your -- this doesn't matter.

Well, it got me on the PGA TOUR and I'm playing well. I'm one of the best players in the world. I hope to be the best player one day, but I've still got to work on my game. I've got a lot more to go, and certainly people have said things, and I'm okay with it. I just want the majority of people to understand that I'm not that bad of a guy and I'm not that slow.

Q. In the past 36 hours, have you watched either of the two videos that really got people --
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: No, I lived it.

Q. Brooks was saying in his days of anger management issues, it was constructive for him to,?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Correct.

Q. He thought he was behaving one way and when he saw it on video, it was different than what he thought?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I've looked at multiple instances where I've taken over a minute to hit a shot. But again, you've got to remember, this is not -- this is not anywhere near over 10 percent of my shots.

Conor clocked me out there today. On average, my shots into the green and off the tee was around 30 seconds. That's ten seconds under, you know. And if you go to the putting green, let's say it takes 50 seconds, that equals out and you're approximately on time.

Q. Why did he clock you?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: We wanted to have proof.

Q. Was this at your request?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, Conor's my manager, and I said, hey, let's see it today. We want to have some proof so we can show some people, and he has the time numbers. Unfortunately PGA TOUR doesn't keep all those, unfortunately. Not yet.

Q. We know there are slow players out on the PGA TOUR, so I'm going to ask you the same thing that I asked Brooks. Most slow players don't know they are slow. How do you make them recognize that they are slow?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, I agree with penalizing. That should be what happens out on TOUR. I am not opposed to it one bit, because if it is my issue and I'm taking too long a time, absolutely penalize me. I've got no issue with that. That may come as a shock to a lot of people, but I'm okay with that because it's my fault, if it's warranted, and that's where we've got to talk about that and see what happened and when we are timing and how things are going along.

But penalizing, I'm a huge advocate of it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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