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BUICK INVITATIONALJanuary 25, 2007Brandt SnedekerLA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you, Brandt, for joining us for a few minutes in the media center here at the Buick Invitational. What a day out there, 61 on that North Course. 62 was your low on the Nationwide Tour. This is your first year on the PGA TOUR. Just share with us your emotions right now. BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's pretty much a dream come true, to have a round like that to start my year, start, I guess, the mainland West Coast over here for me. I played phenomenal. I got a lot of breaks out there and it was a lot of fun. To see the crowd kind of work their way back to me from Tiger was kind of nice. Kind of seeing them rooting me on the last nine holes although I couldn't bring it in the way they wanted me to, but it was still fun. I had a blast. Q. When you walked off the range did you feel it coming off the range, did you feel that 10-under through 10 holes? BRANDT SNEDEKER: No, I didn't. It's one of those things I was hitting it terrible on the range all week, and if you had watched me warm up, you would have put money on me to miss the cut. It's just one of those things that happened overnight. This morning it felt great and rolled the ball phenomenal on the greens all day. More than anything, I had a blast. Even when I was 9-under after 9 or 10-under after 10, I was just realizing where I was. It's one of the prettiest golf courses in the world, I was playing against the best golfers in the world and having fun doing it. It's kind of surreal right now, but I'm sure it'll sink in tonight, and when I play out there tomorrow it'll really hit me, so hopefully get a good night's rest and be ready to go. Q. You mentioned some lucky breaks. Could you talk about some of those? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, I really don't know where to start. I had quite a few of them. I believe I hit driver -- to be honest, the whole front nine for me is a blur. I don't remember what happened. I remember making a few putts. I think I was under a tree on 6 or 7, 15 or 17, hit a lucky punch wedge out of it and rolled it up to three feet and made birdie and that's when I kind of got going. That's when I knew this might be one of my better days, if not my best day. After that it was just kind of each hole everything starts slowing down even more and more. I rolled the ball fantastic. I think I had nine or ten putts on the front nine, I didn't miss a putt, made a couple long ones, hit some great iron shots. But more than anything I just had a blast out there. The crowd, going into today they probably didn't have a clue who I was, and by the end of the day I had people cheering my name on and telling me to shoot 59 and stuff like that. It was a great way to break onto the PGA TOUR. Q. (Inaudible.) BRANDT SNEDEKER: No. As long as they give an effort, I don't care. I've heard it butchered so many times that it's no big deal. I've gotten snot licker before, so I don't think it could get any worse than that. Q. It's only been one round, the opening round. How does it feel to be ahead of Tiger Woods? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Like you said, it's only one round, so it doesn't really matter right now. If I'm sitting up here Sunday in the same position, then it does matter. There's a reason why he's the best in the world. It's not a race, it's a marathon, four rounds of golf. I had a great day today, but I've got three more days on a very tough golf course. It will be a real reality check come tomorrow morning. It doesn't matter what I did today because starting tomorrow there's a whole three more rounds of golf. There's a lot of golf left to play. Q. How do you keep the momentum going? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I don't know. That's a good question. Hopefully get off to a good start tomorrow, drive the ball in the fairway a few times and give myself some birdie chances. I'm rolling the ball great right now, so hopefully I can keep doing that. More than anything having fun. This is the first time in my career I've had the lead at a PGA TOUR event. Q. What did you realize what you were doing, when you were 8-under through 8 or 11-under through 11? BRANDT SNEDEKER: When I made the turn I was 9-under through 9, I guess, and I tried to tee the ball up on No. 1 and the ball fell out of my hand I was shaking so bad. So that's when I knew I had a chance. After that, the whole back nine I didn't really get that nervous. I never really scared it. Until 17, I guess -- if I had gotten to 11, 12, 13 early then I would have started thinking about it. But being 10-under par, you've got to make three birdies coming in. I thought if I had made that short birdie putt on No. 12 that it would have been a little different. That would have got me 11-under through 12 holes, then it starts really hitting you. I never really got to the point where it was close. Q. How long was that birdie putt on 3? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Two and a half feet. It was a bad putt. I pushed it. It wasn't a very good effort, but that's going to happen. Q. I was actually going to ask you about that putt and the one that followed, which looked like as good a putt as you hit all day. Those were sort of the two where you sort of exhaled? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Exactly. That's when it kind of -- probably one of the best putts I hit all day. I kind of hit some putts on the front nine that hung in there, didn't break. That one was hit right where I wanted to, I thought it was in. I put my lips all over it, as they say, tried to walk it in the hole, but it didn't want to go in. But it was fun. That was a great-looking birdie, should have made it, didn't go in. After that I really didn't have another good look at birdie until 17, and I hit two good putts on 17 and 18. 18 went in and 17 didn't. I kind of misread 17 a little bit. Q. How much had you played the North Course before? Just been a couple practice rounds, any junior worlds or anything like that? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Just played one and a half practice rounds on it. It's a bear. It's everything it's built up to be. It's going to be tough. Q. How about the North Course? BRANDT SNEDEKER: The only time I've ever seen San Diego golf is this week. I obviously love it. It's been great to me. I wish we had more tournaments in San Diego. The weather has been great, the golf courses are phenomenal. I can't wait to do it. Q. There was some talk this week that it was possible we were going to go really low here, and then other guys thought maybe not because of the poa annua greens. Do you think it was to your benefit that you got out fairly early? How were they rolling relative to what they could maybe later on? BRANDT SNEDEKER: They rolled great today, I thought. I think they cut them down a little bit from the practice rounds. They rolled really smooth the front nine. The back nine you get a few spike marks, but if you hit a good putt that's rolling through it's not going affect it too much. Obviously I can say that now because I made a lot of putts today. I played with D.J. Brigman and he made a lot of putts today, too. He played great. It's there for the taking. The rough, there's probably more benefit from the rough not being too bad because I didn't hit a whole lot of fairways but then again, those fairways are really small, really tough to hit. That's probably the defense of that golf course. You miss a few fairways, and the greens are so severely sloped from back to front that if you go over a couple pins you're going to make bogeys. I was lucky enough, and I didn't really ever put myself in that position. Q. Do you always talk this fast? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I'm probably in a blur right now. I'm trying to slow down the best I can. I can't help it. I've never been in this position before, never had this many cameras around me, never had this many people care about what I say to be honest with you. Q. I wanted to ask you two questions, one about the gallery. When I got to 1 there was a ton of people but they all this their back turned watching Tiger's group. When did you first sense eyeballs turning towards you? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's kind of funny, I made a comment to my caddie walking down that fairway, "Let's see if we can take some of Tiger's crowd away from him because that means we're doing something pretty good." Sure enough, they started following the whole back nine. I can't believe it. I don't know if they know who I am or what was going on, but they were sure rooting me on like they were my best friend out there. It was great. Q. Secondly, any good exchanges with you or DJ or Bryce out there? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, I was kind of joking with them the whole time about it because I was trying to keep the moment light. I started thinking about it I was afraid I might start playing kind of tight and making mistakes, and we were just kind of joking down a couple fairways about how I haven't made any putts today or wasn't getting any good breaks. I told DJ I'd pay him 100 grand for his back nine on 18. I'd love to have that 59 in the record books. He played phenomenal. He played great out there. It's always a good time when you get three guys playing good golf like we were today. Q. (Inaudible.) BRANDT SNEDEKER: No, they didn't. I can't wait to put that in the papers. I'm sure my dad is going to love that. Q. Speaking of doing things quickly, there's a rumor that you fell last year running to your car or tripped over a tree root? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, I did. Thanks for bringing that up. I feel very coordinated right now (laughter). Yeah, I was running to my car and just kind of fluke accident, tripped over a root and broke my collarbone. I wish I had some kind of great story for you, that I did something fun, exciting and broke it, but it's kind of plain-Jane, being clumsy way to break a collarbone. As far as the break goes, it was great, didn't have any displacement, don't have any pain in it, so more than anything else, it's sort of a summer vacation for me. Felt like I was back in school, had about six weeks off right in the middle of the summer. It was kind of nice. Q. Were you going to get a club, something out of your car? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I was running to dinner. I was running late. I don't do that anymore. Needless to say, I walk to my car now. Q. For tomorrow are you going to go and maybe get some advice from the Tour guys about going and playing the South Course? With the lead tonight, what do you do going into tomorrow? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Try and get some sleep obviously. The South Course, I believe it is, is brutal. For somebody that doesn't hit it very long like I do, it's going to be a lot of 3-, 4- and 5-irons to those greens. Those greens are extremely difficult. So just try to get some rest tonight, come out there tomorrow and try and hit a bunch of fairways and greens and try and take the pressure off myself. You start missing greens out there you're going to put a lot of pressure on your short game and your putter, and you don't want to do that around this golf course. Q. Can you talk about playing with the lead? You've obviously won on the Nationwide Tour. Can you talk about how many times you've played with the lead and what you think that will be like playing out here and how you dealt with it on that Tour? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, I think one of the great things about the Nationwide Tour is that you do get put in that kind of position where you do have the lead. I think I had the lead in Midland, Texas, last year and led through all four rounds. Obviously I'll draw something on that tomorrow and try to realize that, hey, it's a long week. Having the lead right now means absolutely nothing. Having the lead on Saturday night going into Sunday, then it's a little different. Sunday back nine is a lot different than that. Just try and enjoy this round for what it was; it was a great round of golf. But unfortunately it's the first round and not the last round. We've got three more rounds to go. Q. Can you tell me after you broke your collarbone and you came back, was it two or three weeks that you won? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Three weeks after I came back I won in Midland. It was really similar to today; I was going to Midland playing terrible and found something on the range right before I teed up on Thursday and played great all week. It's funny how that works. Q. Not that I don't trust The Golf Channel, but how does your family accurately pronounce your last name? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Snedeker. Q. Do you know what the course record was? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I have no clue. I think when I made the turn on the front nine I thought it had to be pretty close to setting a record somewhere. The only time I've been 9-under through 9 has been playing Tiger Woods on Play Station. I've never even sniffed being that low. It was fun, definitely an enjoyable experience. It was something I will remember forever, just having that kind of good fortune for ten holes of golf. Q. Playing against Tiger Woods or playing as Tiger Woods? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Playing against Tiger Woods. I can't even beat him on Play Station, I don't even want to think about beating him out here. Q. If we could go through your round. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Sure. Q. Starting with No. 10, the birdie. BRANDT SNEDEKER: I hit a -- what did I do on 10? I hit a wedge in there about eight feet and made a good putt, start the day with a little left-to-righter. On 11, I hit a -- I blocked it right in the rough and hit a very good 5-iron to about ten feet behind the hole and made it. 12, par 3 toward the ocean, 6-iron in there about five feet behind the hole and made it. 13, dogleg left -- I can't remember it. I'm not lying, I can't remember it. I made a putt somewhere obviously. 14, eagle -- I've got it now. 13 -- no, I can't remember 13. 14, the par 5, I hit 3-wood about six feet, made it. Great shot from the right rough, came off perfect. 15 was the one where I hit it right in the trees. Hit like a half wedge out, rolled it up there to about four feet, made it. 16 was probably the first fairway I hit in a while, lob wedge to about three feet behind the hole, four feet behind the hole, made it. Q. (Inaudible.) BRANDT SNEDEKER: No, I hit a 7-iron just off the green to the right. Chipped it and had a good chance of making that because it was a really easy chip shot and I thought I made it when I hit it but it just curled off and made about a three-footer for par. Then on 18, I hit driver in the fairway and hit a rescue on the front left part of the green and I had to chip it because the green was so severely sloped I chipped it off the front left part of the green to about eight feet and made it for birdie. 1, I hit driver in the left rough, 3-wood, came out perfect again and had about six feet for eagle. Hit a great putt, caught the left lip, lipped it out and tapped in nor birdie. 9, I blocked it right in the trees, hit a little 3-iron, punched out, lob wedge to about ten feet, drained it. Q. Do you want to try to go back to 13? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I've got no clue. I'm not going to sit here and tell you -- I can't remember it. Q. What did you have for breakfast? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Good question. I had Fruit Loops. JOAN v.T. ALEXANDER: Thank you for joining us, and again, congratulations on a great round today. End of FastScripts |
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