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WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 19, 2007Brandt SnedekerGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome our 2007 Wyndham Championship tournament winner, Brandt Snedeker. Brandt, a superb round today, 9-under par 63. Come from behind to earn your first tournament win. You moved to No. 9 in the FedExCup point standings. Your season money goes to $2.5 million, approximately. Just talk about the day and the emotions you have right now and we'll let these guys and ladies ask questions. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Pretty overwhelming. I was trying to go out there and win today but more importantly I was trying to shoot a good number. I knew it was going to be a low number to win. I can't believe I shot 63, to be honest with you. I didn't feel like I was hitting it all that great on the range this morning but the putter was working great and I gave myself a lot of chances and they went in. I'm pretty overwhelmed right now with what's going on, the last hour or so. Bear with me. I haven't really thought about what comes with this yet or anything. I'm certainly going to enjoy it and just try to make sure my head doesn't get too big. Make sure people keep the me in my place. Conditional page break: 2 JOE CHEMYCZ: One of the things that comes with it is a spot in the Mercedes-Benz Championship next year and a tournament in Augusta, Georgia you might be familiar with. BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's pretty unbelievable. I was trying to keep my card on Tour. This never really crossed my mind this much. The spot in Mercedes is going to be an experience. To play Augusta as a pro, is going to be a dream come true. Lots of dreams coming to realization today and pretty special. JOE CHEMYCZ: Questions. Q. The putt on 17, did you think that that might have been the deciding one? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I was hoping so. I knew Tim -- I saw Tim made birdie on 16 right behind me. I knew I was tied for the lead, I knew I was going to have to at least birdie one of the last two to gives myself a chance because of the way the score was going, everybody was making birdies everywhere. I hit a great shot on 17. Hit a 3-iron. Hit it where I wanted to. Gave myself a long putt. I just asked for some help from everybody at home that I knew was rooting me on. Kind of hopped right in the middle. And then walking to 18 was more of a blur after that, you know, just trying to keep it in play, give myself a chance and hit a great putt on 18, too, and didn't go in. Really thought that Petro would probably give himself a good chance on 18 to make a birdie and he didn't. He played a great round of golf. I feel very fortunate not to have to go to a playoff. Seeing my nack when I've been a professional is to find a way to get to the playoff and I kind of didn't want to go through this. The nerves were going so bad, wouldn't like my chances. JOE CHEMYCZ: That putt was 32 feet 2 inches. That was the longest putt made of the week. Q. You already solidified with a spot in the FedExCup going into next week. Now you moved up to 9th. Your position according to the models on Tour, us you have a chance to win now. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Exactly. Q. Was there ever a moment maybe going into the tournament, the weeks leading up where you thought about skipping this week? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Not at all. I knew this is a very important week. The week before the FedExCup is a week where you can -- I got a feeling lot of guys would take this week off and play four in a row and so I knew, you know, the top players in the world weren't going to be here. That gave me a chance being a rookie out here to jump those kind of guys. I've been playing very well as of late and when you're playing well the rule of thumb is to keep playing, not take weeks off. I've always played well in North Carolina for some reason. I've played a lot of Pinehurst tournaments, North/South Amateur. Just kind of love the style of golf y'all have in North Carolina. I knew I was going to come here and seems like I made the right decision. It's worked out great. Q. You were the highest ranked FedExCup points guy in the field. Does this kind of validate the whole system, do you think, that you ended up being the one who won it? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I hope so. Out here there are so many good players that from top to bottom, you know, you have Ryder Cuppers in the field, guys that have won a lot of tournaments. To say I was the highest ranked field in this field is not really accurate. It ranked true this week. I've been playing very good as of late. It's been very good year. Kind of rode the momentum coming into it and it's more luck than anything else. I wish I could tell you it was all skill. It was a lot of luck. Q. Brandt, when it's about 14 or 15 when the board is really jammed with people, what goes through your mind? Do you do a lot of watching or do you just settle down and say -- BRANDT SNEDEKER: I tried to look at the leaderboard on No. 13, the first par-5 and never came up. Every time I looked up it was on something else. I had no clue. I knew I was going to have to make a lost birdies. With two par-5s you're going to have to birdie both of them to give yourself a chance. The birdie on 14 I believe was huge, you know, kind of lipped in. Probably shouldn't have gone in ever but got a little help from somebody who was out there looking for me. I figured that was a big one when I hit the 3-wood on 15 on in two, gave myself a good chance. I thought I would be around the lead somewhere. I finally saw the leaderboard on 16, saw that I was tied. Saw Petro hit it in there close and be tied. I knew I was going to have to do something on 17 or 18. Q. That's the first time you knew? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I saw a leaderboard on 15 seeing we were all jumbled up. Even if I birdied and went to the lead I figured one of those two guys -- Carl, was right there -- one of them were going to birdie 15. I knew it was going to be tied with three to go. Q. Brandt, you mentioned -- well, I won't put words in your mouth, but you were the one guy that could upset everybody that wasn't here. Nobody else could have won this tournament and jumped into a spot. I mean all the people who didn't come basically were banking on you not winning. BRANDT SNEDEKER: I guess yeah, that's probably pretty safe bet, too. It's pretty long shot for me to win. I'm glad I messed up their plans, I guess the best way to put it. I was more -- I looked at this week as a great week to come and play golf and compete, you know. More than anything, I was excited about being here. It's amazing when you get excited about being somewhere and playing golf you start playing well, stay in a positive frame of mind. I was never going to take this week off. It worked out great, my schedule and very glad I didn't take it off now. It's worked out great. Q. There's a possibility that next year you might be defending your title on another golf course. How do you feel about Forest Oaks and have you ever played Sedgefield? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I have not. I hope they don't move it. I love this place. Are you kidding me? I obviously have very good feelings about this golf course. 16, 17, 18 are three great finishing holes. It's always good to see it end up the way it is. 17 being a tough par-3 and 18 being a tough par-4. I don't know anything about Sedgefield. If they're thinking about moving, I hope they don't. If they listen to me, which they won't, it will be great to keep it here. I'll have a lot of good memories on this one. Q. After you finished, how long was the wait in your mind? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Felt like years. Sitting there trying to do everything I could to keep my mind busy, quit thinking what could go wrong, what would happen. I sat in that trailer for what felt like an hour, you know, waiting on it. Then I walked outside and sat with Peter Kostis, felt like an hour, maybe more like ten minutes. I saw Petro was out in the fairway. I knew -- I heard he was 3. You don't ever really have a idea. When Billy was in the fairway bunker, I saw him -- Robert Gamez shot came in my head, somebody holes out to tie us. I was trying to prepare myself for a playoff and luckily didn't have that. Q. I heard you say outside that you weren't quite as jittery, you were singing to yourself and things like that? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I was doing everything I could to quit thinking about what was going on. You know, me and my caddie, Scott, had a lot of great talks out about. Talked about movies, anything in the world but golf. Because, you know, I didn't want to think about what's going on. I was going to get nervous and I had that situation happen a couple times this year I got really nervous and an hit some bad shots. I was very calm out there for me for the last 6, 7 holes, it never really entered my mind what was going on. I kind of knew where I was. I guess the one good thing about this tournament or the way this tournament played out this week is you knew you were going to have to make birdies so there's no laying up involved. You knew you would have to go to every pin, try to make every putt. There was no well I'm at 1800, I can just sit back and wait. You couldn't do that. You had to get out there and try to birdie every hole, give yourself a chance. Q. Now that you got this win, does this change your plans for the fall, maybe not play as many fall events? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah. I might -- I've played -- I think I played the most tournaments on Tour this year of anybody. I'm not sure. Might take a couple off in the fall. There's a lot of great events in the fall event that I want to play in, Walt Disney, Vegas, Turning Stones. So many neat golf courses I want to play and great towns I want to go to. It will be interesting to see how it pans out. More importantly these next four weeks right now trying to get myself in the right frame of mind and make sure I go in and try to win each one of them. That's our goal. Want to get in the Tour Championship and try to win the FedExCup. Q. There's going to be an increased interest in you going into this first event, no Tiger. You proved them right by moving up into the Top-10. Are you ready for that added attention? BRANDT SNEDEKER: When the tee goes in the ground it really doesn't matter. All the other stuff is great. And, trust me, I love having it. I love people putting pressure on me because it makes me play better. I think you ask any golfer we all put tons of pressure on ourselves more than anybody else could. It's not really going to be a turning factor. It's great I'm obviously going in playing well. That's the best case scenario for me. Hopefully I am -- I look at it as a guy who could have a chance of winning it. I get on hot streaks I make a lot of putts. Give myself some chances. Q. The first round I think you shot 70 and were tied for 65th. What were you thinking? What changed between then and now? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I couldn't have a more opposite way of my week worked out. I hit it the best I hit it all year the first round. Didn't miss a fairway or green. Couldn't make a putt to save my life. You know you're going to have -- I put myself behind the 8 ball. Going to have to shoot 4, 5-under to make the cut, get myself back in position. Gradually as the week went on I started hitting the ball a little worse each day. Friday and Saturday I didn't hit it that great. Friday I made a few long ones. Yesterday I bunch of putts. Today I made everything. I guess you find out what wins golf tournaments. It's not necessarily ball striking. It's making the key putts when you have to. I've always said I love getting on the greens and making putts. That's my game. I'm normally not a great ball striker. I made it easy on myself today which was great. JOE CHEMYCZ: Some stats on that to back up what Brandt just said. 16 of 18 greens on Thursday and three 3-putts and that will be in your notes but his putts made increased as everyday went on. Round 1, 140 feet 7 inches, total putts made. 50 feet 8 inches in round 2. 94 feet fours inches in round 3. 118 feet 9 inches in round 4. Q. Brandt, moving up like you did, leap frogging a lot of people, one of the knocks on this tournament or presumably a lot of people either stayed away or withdrew from fatigue, didn't think it was important enough for them positionwise. In hindsight, do you think that your jump will help next year with this tournament's field? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I think so. I hope so. I think the Tour, everything the Tour has been telling us you have a legitimate chance to win the FedExCup you got to be inside the Top 15. I wanted to try to get inside the top 15. I think the guys who were 25th or 35th or 40th that didn't play this week could have really jumped up and made it a whole lot easier and I think everybody is trying to -- doesn't really know how it's going to work out. Everybody is kind of leary this first year. You want to try to get as high as you can going into that, get the most amount of points as possible going into the FedExCup so you don't have to put a lot of pressure on yourself to play well. Three, four weeks there's no guarantee you're going to make one cut. You just don't know. You really don't know what your game is going to be like, you really don't know what's going to happen. You try to want to get as high as you can so you have something to fall back on where you finish throughout the year. That's my thought process. I know my game can leave me tomorrow and I can have the shanks. I wanted to go as high as I could. Q. After being new out here, you win a golf tournament, you shot a record round. When you get into the trailer to sign your card, any special hints as a rookie to make sure you're signing the right card? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Me and my caddie went over 15 times making sure we didn't mess this one up. If this is my chance to win I really do not want to mess up these numbers. I'm not a great numbers guy which is not good because I went to Vanderbilt, that doesn't say a whole lot, but numbers are not my specialty so we went over about five, six times. The guys in the trailer went over it with me making sure everything was okay. It would be a tragedy to go through all that this week and screw it up by -- definitely sounds like something I would do. I'm glad I didn't do it. Q. Brandt, there's been a lot of talk about the weather this week. You know, obviously it's been unnaturally warm here. Did that help you, hurt you or did you even notice? BRANDT SNEDEKER: You know, it's great. I grew up in Nashville so I'm used to hot summers. I love playing golf in the heat. Something about it that I'm used to. After playing last week in Tulsa, it was obviously insanely hot there. This week it felt like an air conditioned version of it. I never really got too hot out there. The golf course played exactly as I thought it was. Played firm and fast and great. The greens were soft. That's why the scores were so low. But it's a great week with the weather. I think we had one delay but besides that, couldn't have gone off any better. JOE CHEMYCZ: Take us through your birdies and bogies starting here at No. 1. BRANDT SNEDEKER: No. 1 I hit a 3-wood off the tee, hit the fairway. Hit a nice wedge, pitching wedge from about 120 yards to about ten feet short and hit it right putt right in the center. On 2, I hit a great drive right on the right side. Had about 255 into the wind. Hit a 3-wood, kind of flared it out to the short right. Hit a nice chip shot to about 8 feet and made it. On No. 5 I hit a -- flared a 3-wood in the bunker. Hit a good lob wedge. Probably one of the best shots I hit today. Hit about ten feet. Made another good putt. No. 6, I hit a good drive down the right-hand side. Had an 8-iron from about 175 downwind. Good 8-iron right at it, 15 feet short. Able to make that putt. No. 7, I hit a rescue into the fairway bunker. Hit a good wedge out of there at about 12 feet behind the hole and made that putt. 8, I had a good up and down from short of the green. 9, I hit a great drive, probably the best drive I hit today right down the middle of the fairway. Hammered it. I had 260 to the hole. Hit a rescue. Made a great 2-putt. Tough 2-putt. 12, was kind of a -- 11 I got a bad break. Hit a good shot out of the fairway bunker. Wind gusted. Got it up and down. 12, probably one of the better swings of the day. Hit a 7-iron right at it. The wind was supposed to be behind us, wasn't. Came up short. Hit a bad chip shot. Bad putt. Was able to make about a 5-footer for bogey there which was huge. Kept my momentum going. 13, I hit 3-wood off the tee like I have all week, hit a nice rescue on the left side of the green, was able to 2-putt. Really thought I made it for eagle. 14, I hammered a drive down the middle of the fairway about 122 yards. Hit about ten feet behind the hole and got really lucky there. Hit a great putt but it didn't break. Caught the right edge and at least did a 360 before it went in. I don't know how it went in with the speed it did. That's when I thought things might go my way. 15, I hit a great 3-wood from about 250, cut it up against the wind. Came down real soft about 20 feet behind the hole for eagle. Hit a good putt. Then on 17, I hit a 3-iron, probably the best under the pressure probably the best swing of my life from about 235 into the wind which I don't hit a 3-iron that far. Absolutely smoked it. About 25 feet or 30 feet, I guess is what you said and hit a great putt. Was hopping the whole way. Hopped on the right line and got in there. I don't know how it did. Pretty exciting. JOE CHEMYCZ: Anything else? Alright. Thank you Brandt. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Thanks guys. End of FastScripts |
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