AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM

February 3, 2023

Hank Lebioda

Pebble Beach Golf Links

Quick Quotes

Q. Can you talk about the conditions today versus yesterday and how it was for you?

HANK LEBIODA: Yeah, it was definitely more difficult. I thought there was a little bit more wind during my round than I had yesterday out at Monterey. Course is probably a little bit more difficult as well. So a combination of those two things made it a challenging round.

Q. You kind of have not had a great beginning to the season. Someone told me that. So how do you look at why this week so far you've had such success?

HANK LEBIODA: I know the work that I put in. I trust my team around me. The way that we saw it is that it was just going to be a matter of time. If I kept working our plan that we had made that good things would come. Yes, the beginning of the season hasn't been good. It's been a kind of a rough last 18 months almost. So I'm very fortunate to be in this position today and this week. I know it's just part of a long climb back.

Q. The plan, when did you implement that and what was it exactly?

HANK LEBIODA: Oh, it's just the way we go about our business. The way we go about our business. The way we treat ourselves. Myself and those in the team. Starting from the foundation. Building it up from the bottom. Trying our best not to skip any steps or look over anything and slowly put together what we feel like is a way back to good golf.

Q. Were you watching the leaderboard at all?

HANK LEBIODA: Yeah. Hard not to.

Q. How much attention, I mean, does it get into your head at all?

HANK LEBIODA: No, I mean, you know what's happening when you got cameras following you around. You got boom mics, you got things going on. So it kind of does that for you. You don't really need to check too much. But, yeah, I was just trying to play good golf today. Like I said, it was tough.

Q. One of our colleagues looked at your record and it's very quirky. If you go back to Bermuda and then the RSM and then all of that, you played 11 different golf courses in your last 11 rounds.

HANK LEBIODA: Sounds right.

Q. What's your favorite of those 11?

HANK LEBIODA: I would say here. Tough to beat.

Q. It's different.

HANK LEBIODA: What is different exactly?

Q. That you played all those different courses.

HANK LEBIODA: Oh, yeah. It's just the way the season breaks. The beginning of our kind of a spring season I guess here on the West Coast, it's just busy. I didn't play Sony this year in Hawaii. Started at Palm Springs. It's the same for everybody. Because I didn't play in Sony that makes it a little bit more courses and fewer rounds. But we're professionals. We do our best to try to approach each round as its own event.

Q. Harry Higgs was in here earlier and he talked about the fact that he is starting to learn or trying to learn how not to beat himself up. Are you of that same mindset? Is that part of your plan?

HANK LEBIODA: I don't think we could ever be our own friend enough out on the golf course. I mean, on the golf course and in life in general. It's one of those just always learning, always trying to be a better friend to yourself, be a better person to yourself. It's not necessarily something that I was concerned with that I thought I maybe was too hard on myself. But rather look at that as something where just always to work on, always to keep an eye on.

Q. When you talk about your plan, how much confidence do you gain out of these first two rounds versus any other two rounds, because you know that you're kind of stepping up to doing different things or better things?

HANK LEBIODA: I take more confidence in the work I put in day-in, day-out rather than these two rounds, to be honest with you. The consistent nature of which I've been working and been communicating with my team, that's what great individuals, great programs are built on. No reason to value these two rounds more than the, lord knows how many hours I've put in in the last 18 months or so trying to get back to a position where I'm competing out on the golf course.

Q. You said 18 months twice now. So was there a seminal moment where you just said, Okay, we can't keep going this way?

HANK LEBIODA: No, I had a family incident. Not super ready to talk about it. I withdrew from the 3M Open in 2021. Dad was really sick. That's about all I really want to get into at the moment. But it's been a long year and a half since then.