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MASTERS TOURNAMENTApril 12, 2008Brandt SnedekerAUGUSTA, GEORGIA CLAUDE NIELSEN: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure to welcome Brandt Snedeker back. You really fought your way back down the stretch, awesome work today, congratulations. Finished 2-under and is 9-under on the Tournament. Do you want to review the card and maybe give us some club selections? BRANDT SNEDEKER: We got a mixed bag today, so bear with me. I think I birdied No. 2. Kind of hit it into the green-side bunker again in two from about 245 with a rescue and hit a mediocre bunker shot to about 25 feet up the hill and hit a great putt up the middle, got my day going. Birdied No. 8, kind of laid up to a good number, about 55 yards to that front pin and hit a good pitch shot in there about eight feet short of the hole up the hill and hit a good putt there, caught the left edge and kind of rimmed around and went in for me which was nice. Started the debacle, I guess. 11 hit a pull-hook of the tee and got very lucky, that could have been in a very bad spot. Hit a great second shot to get on the front edge of the green and got to the position where I had to chip it off the fringe and had a pretty good pip shot and a good putt from about eight feet up the hill ask just missed it, miss-read it a little bit. 11 was playing about 155 today and just tried to choke a little 7-iron down and tugged it into the wind and missed it -- I was trying to miss it left, worried about leaving one out to the right and finding Rae's Creek. Hit a good pitch out to about eight feet and hit a great putt and just miss-read it again, just by a hair. Then 13, I had about 197 front, 230 to the pin, and perfect 3-iron, just didn't turn it over. Hung it out right in the middle of that creek. Took a drop and hit a pitch shot that I thought was pretty good but didn't quite make it up the hill and 2-putted for bogey. And then 14, I hit a 7-iron in there about -- I think we had about 174 is what we had and hit a 7-iron about six or eight feet right behind the hole right up the hill exactly where you want to be, hit a great putt right in the middle of the hole. 15, I laid up to about -- laid up to 85 yards and hit a little knock down sand wedge to take the spin off of it and hit it in there and probably the most nervous I was all day was on that shot and was able to hit a great shot in there about eight feet behind the hole and hit a tickler left-to-right and got out there a little too far but caught the left edge for me. Then on 18, I had about 182 yards is what I had, uphill, and was kind of right in between clubs and went ahead with hopefully -- I learned on Thursday, you don't want to be long so I went ahead and hit a 7-iron, just hammered it, hit a great shot about six feet and made the putt so it was a good way to end the round. CLAUDE NIELSEN: Great work, thank you. Q. How do you keep your composure and get back on your feet and turn it around after what happened? BRANDT SNEDEKER: You've just got to realize this is a long tournament. Over the course of 72 holes, if today was Sunday, may be a little different story on how I react, but we've got a lot of golf left to play. I knew I was playing good, I felt like I was swinging good at it and had not hit too many bad shots to be honest with you and I knew I was rolling it great, so if I gave myself a few more chances I would be fine, and sure enough I did coming down the stretch and made three birdies. Q. Following that, did you give yourself a pep talk after 13? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Actually my caddie, Scott, was fantastic. He grabbed me walking off 13 green and said: You know, you're playing great. Keep your head on straight. Everything is going fine. You're swinging great at it. You're putting great. It's going to happen. You know, we are going to get some good breaks. You just got three bad breaks in a row. He goes, "You'll get three good ones coming back," and sure enough it did. Q. Was it you had just said that the little wedge into 15, were you nervous over it because of the circumstance of where you stood in the round, or was it because of what happened to Trevor on that hole and that ball just hanging up there? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I was just nervous because that's such a difficult shot. It's probably about the hardest 90-yard shot you'll find anywhere in golf, and I knew the ramifications of it were extremely -- were my tournament. I wanted to hit a good shot there and get it close and give myself a birdie. At the end of the day, that's a birdie hole and you have to be aggressive and step up there and hit a good shot. There's no room for error, and just very happy that I stood up there and did the right stuff. Q. I was not sure about how the order of the play went. Did you hit yours before Trevor? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I did, yes. Q. And then -- BRANDT SNEDEKER: And then Trevor hit his and got -- yeah. Q. How big of a break was that from his standpoint? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I wish I could say it was a huge break, but I got the same break on Friday. So I know exactly how he feels. Q. A moment ago you mentioned the difference between today and tomorrow. What makes being in the final group on Sunday at a major, especially this one, so much more different than being in the final group last year at Greensboro, and how do you think you're going to handle it? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Well, I wasn't in the final group at Greensboro. But you know, this is just playing golf tomorrow. At the end of the day I'm going out there trying to win a golf tournament; doesn't matter that it's a major. I'm going out there to win a golf tournament tomorrow. I'm going out there to play good golf and see what I've got. This is the ultimate test for us. We go out there on a tough day and we know it's set in front of us, and we know we need to play a good round of golf if we want to win, and that's what's going to have to happen tomorrow. Everything I've grown up trying to do, everything I've practiced for, everything I've done, is in preparation for tomorrow. I'm not nervous about it at all. I'm very excited about it, and this is why everybody in this field practices and plays is for a chance like tomorrow; so I can't wait to get out there. Q. Flesch has been around but the other three guys, Immelman and yourself and Paul might be called the new wave, and the guy in fifth place obviously is a tremendous factor; he's never come-from-behind to win a major. Are you thinking of him and -- BRANDT SNEDEKER: Who is the guy in fifth place? Oh, Tiger Woods, yeah, that guy. (Laughter). Yeah, I'm sure he's going to be a factor. His name is going to be on the leaderboard somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be there on the back nine. You have to realize that Trevor and all of us in front of him, if we go out there and play a good round of golf; he's going to have to play an extremely great round of golf to beat us. I know Tiger is going to go out there and shoot 4- or 5-under tomorrow and probably knowing him, the way he plays. And as good as he's playing right now, he played a hell of a round today, and that does not bode well for us if we think we're going to be able to shoot 1- or 2-under and win this golf tournament. You have to go out and shoot something low. So just let's you know what you've got to do. Q. If the condition are blustery as the forecast, 25-mile-an-hour winds, how does that factor into the race? And when you look at the board is it really just the six guys have separated yourselves from the pack? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Not at all. If it's playing as hard as it's supposed to be playing tomorrow, somebody might get an early round and post something, you never know what can happen. I think everybody here is excited about it. I think when you get tough conditions on Sunday of a major, it really identifies who is playing the best that week, which is I think what everybody in this field wants to figure out. That's what you work for is trying to figure that kind of stuff out. Q. Really curious about what you're talking about yesterday about coming out here 40 or 50 times and just thinking about when you were saying it yesterday, just wondering, how was that for you for the first ten times as far as asking to play and making the arrangements and how exactly did that work that you got out here this much? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Well, we used come here once a year in college, the Vanderbilt golf team used to be able to come down here and be able to play; a couple of the Members sponsored us. And then when you get that invitation to come play in the Masters, and I guess right around Christmas, you can come down and play as much as you want. And I was out of school, had not turned pro yet and they almost changed the rule the next year because of me, because I was down here every day. I wore it out. (Laughter) I thought, how many times can I have a membership at Augusta National for four months. (Laughter) Q. How long was the drive? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It was 5 1/2 hours from Nashville and came down on the weekends, come down play Thursday night, play 36, be first out Friday morning, go out and play a round, play another in the afternoon; what better scenario could you have to come out and play this course as many times as you wanted to. Q. And what was that feeling like? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It was great, just getting to know the golf course and getting over the whole aura of it is a lot. I've been able to walk around the grounds a little bit and kind of figure out and see where everybody is and get to know a lot of the Members that way, too. A lot of these Members are great guys, got to play a lot of rounds with them and got to know them. It kind of feels more like a home event for me. I feel like I know a lot of the guys in the crowd are cheering me on and it's a good feeling. Q. How much harder is it, Masters conditions? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It's a completely different golf course. Normal conditions are very tough, greens are rolling, but you get the fairways cut real tight, always growing against you, the grain is growing against. And on the fairway, the greens are cut down, you know, rolling probably three or four feet faster. But you know there's a familiarity that comes with playing the golf course where you know you can miss it, and you know what's not a good spot to miss it and what's an okay spot to miss it and that kind of stuff. Despite my experience, I still did it on 11, 12, and 13 and still missed it where I wasn't supposed to, but hopefully that will pay off tomorrow. Q. Can you talk about the battles with your older brother growing up; is it that where you developed some of the mental toughness you showed today and is it true he almost clipped you around Christmastime? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Definitely, whenever we play at home, he's always pretty close to clipping me, and I think he did beat me around Christmas. It did a lot. When you have an older brother, in my case, that was the world to me was to beat him. I guess he is my Tiger Woods now. Like Tiger is everybody's big brother out here because he's beating up on us all. So I remember growing up just playing against him every day, or every weekend when we go out and play just trying to beat him. You know, let him get my ear, talk trash to me, do whatever he needed to do to make sure he beat me. And I still remember the first day beating him in a tournament, was a municipal golf tournament around Nashville called the Muni. I played great that week and beat him, and that's the first time you thought, hey, I can play pretty good, first time I beat him in a tournament. That definitely gave me a lot of resolve as a person. Q. Was that your sophomore year? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yes I think it was -- actually my senior year in high school, summer after my senior year in high school. Q. And all of those times you played it 40, 50 times did you ever bogey Amen Corner like that and did you ever shoot 70? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I think in my amateur days, I actually birdied Amen Corner my first time around it. And today I realize as a pro why you are supposed to bogey those holes, because you don't want to be aggressive on those holes; but you know just unfortunate. It wasn't like I played bad. I hit a bad shot on 11 and probably deserved a bogey. There but 12 was not really that bad a shot. And 13 was, you know, I guess you can consider a bad shot. I missed it where you can't. I had a great number and was trying to be aggressive and trying to make a birdie, and you can never really fault that. Q. In reality, how difficult is it to get the name Tiger Woods out of your head for tomorrow? BRANDT SNEDEKER: When I figure out how to do that, I think I'll be able to charge some guys out here and figure out -- get them to pay me because I don't know how you know what I mean. If he gets off to a great start tomorrow it's going to be in everybody's head. And that's something, as long as we acknowledge it and know it and try to counteract it and realize, hey, he is not going to be a factor in the next golf shot that I hit, you've got a chance of overcoming it. But to sit here and say we are not going to be thinking about Tiger Woods tomorrow is crazy because we are, just like everybody else in this room is and just like everybody else in this world is. We're human, what can we say. Q. The viewers will see something different because the lead four guys have never contended on Sunday in a major; your take on that? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Should make for some pretty exciting golf. Best way to put it is four guys haven't contended IN A major. So shoot at pins, try to do everything we've been doing all week and not try to back our way into this thing. You know when you have that many guys around the lead and the No. 1 player in the world right there, too, you know it's going to take a little number to get it done tomorrow; and it's always what you want, when you are going down the stretch is to know you have to make birdies and make shots. CLAUDE NIELSEN: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. End of FastScripts |
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