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THE BARCLAYS

August 21, 2007

Brandt Snedeker

HARRISON, NEW YORK

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Brandt, thank you for joining us here at The Barclays, the first event of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. Congratulations on your win last week at the Wyndham Championship, your first PGA TOUR victory in your rookie season. Maybe you could talk about winning that event and the couple of days since.
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Okay. Obviously been a good couple of days. It's nice to finish off the year, I guess the regular season in that manner. It was very special for me being from Tennessee growing up in that kind of area in the southeast part of the United States.
You know, still sinking in. It's four good days of golf, and obviously Sunday, a lot good luck and a lot of putts went in and look forward to hopefully continuing on this week, we'll see. Still trying to get my head back on straight and realize I have four more weeks coming up, so back to reality.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Not only did you win your first PGA TOUR event, but you jumped to 9th in the FedExCup standings. Maybe talk about what you anticipate, it's new for everybody but being the first year, maybe your feelings about the next four weeks.
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, I'm excited, so I guess I'm starting off like everybody else now. It's very rare that everybody in the golfing world is a rookie at something, and we're all rookies this week. So I'm very excited about the opportunity that the FedExCup has given me and all of the rest of the players playing for $10 million, largest prize in sports, it's pretty exciting. And more importantly, competing in the best fields of golf for four straight weeks, I think that's what we all relish as golfers. I think what everybody is excited about more than anything else is very rarely do we get -- maybe two weeks in a row we play against the best fields in golf and starting this week, we get four straight weeks. I'm very excited about that and looking forward to the opportunity to playing well.

Q. I'm sure this year or maybe on the Nationwide Tour playing four weeks in a row, probably not a big deal to you, can you understand a scenario where it might be a big deal to some guys who don't play?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, it's going to be actually six in a row for me if I can get into THE TOUR Championship. I'm used to that. I'm young. I have a girlfriend at home but I'm single, I don't have a family, so I don't have any ties, I don't have any problems being on the road for six weeks. There's guys that have families, young kids; you know, that's tough when you're on the road for six straight weeks because they can't travel with you; I guess school is getting ready to start back up.
So I can see why guys are taking time off before or trying to spend as much time with their families, because four straight weeks is kind of a burden when you have small kids at home. And some guys play their best golf after weeks off, that's just the way it is. Everybody's different. I seem to play my best golf when I go on stretches like this where I play a lot on the road for some reason.
You know, I'm sure my body will tell me when it's time to stop. But you know, I'm 26, I'm in reasonably good shape. I can hold up for six straight weeks. I love playing golf, so there's really no downside for me playing so many in a row.

Q. Can you approach this as just a golf tournament or do you start figuring, if you finish here you've got this or that, or is that stuff a little too confusing?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's a little too confusing for me. I'm not that smart. I stick with the simple stuff. I know if I play well this week, then good things happen. And that's more important than anything else is once the tee goes in the ground, we're not thinking about FedExCup points or this or that; we're trying to win. And if you win, everything else comes along with that. On Sunday night, I'll be looking at every possible scenario after we're done, seeing what could play out, but during the tournament we're just trying to shoot as low as we can and try to win.

Q. How difficult is it to prepare in this rain?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Very. Considering I have not been on the golf course yet. It's going to be considering. Hopefully it will calm down a little this afternoon and hopefully tomorrow, I'm lucky I can play in the Pro-Am tomorrow so I can see the golf course. I was fortunate to play here in '04 on a sponsor's exemption, so obviously very nice to me back then, and I have a little experience on this golf course.
It's a great golf course to me. I love it. More of a placement-style golf course with emphasis on putting. The greens here are phenomenal, so very excited about that. Just go out and try to hit a few balls and see if I can rekindle what I had last week, which I'm sure has left me overnight because I haven't been able to touch a club.

Q. Did you do anything differently this year with these last couple of months with the FedExCup in mind or just let the points sort out and go from there?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: Kind of let the points sort out and where they go from there. But definitely Greensboro was an opportunity for me to jump over some guys that took a week off. And that's probably the main reason I went there. Wyndham did a great job that week with stepping in and being the sponsor that they were for that tournament and I can't think them enough for doing that.
But that was a great week for me to be able to jump up here and get up to 9th in the FedExCup points now, which changes everything. It gives you a chance to win, which is all you can ask for going into these four weeks now. It's all on me, I have no excuses; I have everything right where I need to be. I've just got to play good golf and that's what all of the golfers want is a chance to be able to play your own game and not work on anything else, and that's what I've given myself a chance to do and that's the whole point of me playing last week.

Q. You said you played here in '04. I don't remember what the conditions were, but I guess there was a sentiment that moving the tournament to August it would be a different type of golf course. Does this rain now nullify that thought?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: I think so, when I played it was firm and fast. Typically this golf course plays -- they want it to play fast. It's not normally a -- I don't think it's very soft here when they normally have it. But it's going to be soft this week, which just makes for a tougher test.
The rough is going to be thicker. Greens are obviously going to be soft, so that will give us a chance to go at pins we wouldn't normally go at. We'll see, it's supposed to be hot Thursday and Friday, so the course can dry out by Sunday. I'm sure they are used to having rain up here, so I'm sure it will end up being hard and fast by Sunday. It will be nice to have a couple of good days of weather and get some practice in.

Q. Some people have made compare tons to the first ever FedExCup being like the first ever Super Bowl that was played; people didn't realize the significance then until years down the road, the difference obviously in football is they don't have four major tournaments like you do in golf leading up to the Super Bowl. Wonder what your take is on that comparison, and what your take 20 years down the road, what will the FedExCup be?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's hard to compare it to a team start. We're really not a team sport; we're individual. I guess the best scenario I can think of is the NASCAR and Nextel Cup Chase, and we still really are waiting to see how that turns out. Hopefully it turns into one of the biggest sporting events in the history of our game. That's the whole point of doing it.
I think it definitely brings some excitement back into the end of the year which we were obviously lacking the last three or four years. Makes THE TOUR Championship mean a whole lot more now. It makes -- I'm not going to lie. It's hard to turn on golf on Sunday when there's football going on. (Laughter).
So hopefully this will do that for us. That's what we need. We need people turning off football on Sunday and turning on some golf to see how the FedExCup is going to play out. I'd love to have a scenario where Tiger and Ernie and Vijay and Phil, and hopefully throw me in there, that be would great. But we are all -- there's still three or four guys vying for it on Sunday afternoon with a putt to win the FedExCup on Sunday afternoon. That's exactly what the TOUR is thinking. I think the TOUR -- it's a smart, intelligent plan and FedEx did a great job in giving us the richest prize in sports, $10 million. It's a pretty dreamlike scenario I think.

Q. The one aspect that some people turn to when you look at NASCAR and you ask NASCAR drivers, do you want to win the Nextel Cup or the Daytona 500, most say the Daytona 500. Golfers get asked the PGA Championship or the FedExCup and most would choose the PGA Championship. In that sense can the FedExCup get lost in the shuffle of bigger events and it becomes more of a Pro Bowl rather than Super Bowl?
BRANDT SNEDEKER: I hope not. I think you've got to give it time. The first year that the U.S. Open happened or the Masters happened or the PGA Championship happened, it probably wasn't that big of a deal then either. It's hard to go back and see how it was.
This is obviously a new and completely different style for golf, and this could be -- I hope it is, one of the best things we've ever done. I think that it's kind of premature right now to really say if this is going to be as big if not bigger than the majors because we really don't know how it's going to turn out.
If everybody is saying that, I would love to have my name on that trophy first, because that's going to be a great honor. You know, it's something that they can't take away from you. It's accumulated over four weeks, so it's not just a four-round golf tournament. I mean, you've really sat there and earned it. I think it's a great way to test and see who is the best player these last four events.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Brandt Snedeker, thank you.

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