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FARMERS INSURANCE OPENJanuary 26, 2010Brandt SnedekerSAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA MARK WILLIAMS: Brent Snedeker, thanks for joining us here at the Farmers Insurance Open. You're the first interview in this week, and you played last week, you had a Top 10, a good start to your season. Talk about what you're looking forward to this year and what you're looking forward to this week at Torrey Pines. BRANDT SNEDEKER: I'm just excited to be back here. This is one of my favorite places we place all year on TOUR. I think it's great that Farmers Insurance stepped up so late in the game and helped us out this week, and it's such a great week for us, and to have a company like that come in on short notice and really help us out is great. Last week was a great start to the year, just kind of a little rusty unfortunately, but I played really good the last three days. This week is kind of where my year started my rookie year, I guess three years ago now, so I'm getting kind of old and turning into a veteran out here real quick, but I'm excited about it. I love this golf course. I'm playing really good right now, so I like my chances for the week. MARK WILLIAMS: It looks like you kind of carried your form over from late last year. I know you had some medical issues early in '09 and you had a great season after that. Is that the case? BRANDT SNEDEKER: That's the case, yeah. I feel great, 100 percent, so excited about that. I played second the second half of last year and carried that over luckily into last week, so looking for good things this week. Q. There's been a fair amount of discussion about the quality of fields on the West Coast Swing and the appearance fees, the leases, et cetera. Can you see a solution that would ensure better quality for the Hope and for here and LA? BRANDT SNEDEKER: You know, I think the tournaments themselves -- I don't think there's a solution. I think we have a great field this week. You have Phil playing, the No. 2 player in the world. I know that we don't have the Top 10 in the world like they did in Abu Dhabi last week, but the PGA TOUR is very, very deep. We might not have the Top 10 players in the world playing this week, but from 50 on, I think we have a very, very deep field. Any time you have Phil in the field, it immediately jumps the field up. Next week in LA is going to be another great field. It's great golf courses. I think it's kind of hard to contend with the Middle East sometimes. I think their appearance fees over there are hard to match over here. But that being said, the PGA TOUR is great to so many guys over here. We love being over here and will end up playing in Florida, I guess, but for right now I think the golf courses themselves are great, we have great sponsors. We have two great sponsors between this week and next week in Farmers Insurance and Northern Trust next week. They've done a great job bolstering both events, and I think in time players will come back over here and start playing a lot more over here. Q. Have you had the opportunity to get appearance money overseas at all? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah. Q. And you've done it? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I've done it before. At the end of the day, I realized that the PGA TOUR is where I play my golf. I think the more you travel -- I love traveling, I had a great time doing it, but at the beginning of the year my goal is to make the Ryder Cup team. Me playing in Abu Dhabi or Qatar or something like that is great, it's fun, it's exciting, but at the end of the day it's not going to help me get on the Ryder Cup team any faster. I need to be over here, I need to be playing, need to be playing well, and I think it's -- to each his own. I think people are going to travel and is a fun doing that, and you can't fault a guy for doing that. At the same time I think everybody owes a responsibility to the PGA TOUR to make sure the TOUR stays strong, especially in a time we don't have Tiger out here. So hopefully the guys will take a little bit more onus on that and come out here on their own well-being and really support this TOUR. At the end of the day, if these guys aren't supporting the PGA TOUR, we're going to struggle, and I think I'm starting to realize that. Q. They got a lot of rain here last week, they had a stormy season in December. There's more rain in the forecast. How much tougher does the South Course get if they get even more rain? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It'll make it brutally tough because the rough will be super thick. I think when I played here -- it changes each year here depending on the weather. A couple years ago when I played really well here, there was hardly any rough at all, it was really dried out and baked. Last couple years has been a lot of really thick rough, and that makes the golf course play that much longer, that much tougher. Fairways aren't going to roll out as much if they've had a lot of rain, and it makes the course play any longer than it already does. With more rain coming, it's going to make guys -- longer days, mud balls. Rough around the greens will be extremely tough, especially with the new grooves it's going to be extremely tough to judge out of. It's going to be kind of one of those things where you can't really do anything about it. I think we know the whole West Coast is supposed to be wet from what I've understood from the National Weather Service. I think everybody has got their rain gear out, and we're just going to figure out how to get through it. Q. How have you been handling the new grooves? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Pretty good. It doesn't affect me too much at all. I don't hit it long enough to really have to see too much of a difference. I like it. I like the knew grooves. I think it helps guys who don't hit it long out of the rough. I used to be able to not to get to greens when I hit it in the rough because the ball would come out so dead. Now the ball is coming out flying, so I can get to greens now that I couldn't get to before if I miss the fairway, which is great for me. Around the greens, fairway, you don't see any difference, just around the greens a little bit. You can't hit those super checkers like you used to. You've just to place more emphasis on shooting away from pins, don't short-side yourself as much, just go for the middle of the greens. I think you'll see guys will adjust. I think it'll just take a little bit of time. Q. Can you talk about the contrast between the North and South Courses, how important the North is, a good round there, to playing well here? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Definitely. I think the North is -- you put pressure on yourself on the North Course because you know you have shoot low round if you want to be in the tournament going into the weekend. All the par-5s on the North Course are gettable; you get a lot of short par-4s, so it's very key to shoot a 3-, 4-, 5-under par round on the North Course just to feel like you've got a chance on the South Course because the South Course is going to be tough. You might get it one of the three days you play and play well and shoot your 4- or 5-under, but besides that, the other two days you're going to be hoping to shoot a couple under. It's just a tough golf course. The North Course, typically you see guys who play well here and win, they always have a great round on the North Course, so I think that's where you've got to show out there and shoot your low one. Q. You alluded to Tiger's absence. What do you expect week to week in the tournaments he traditionally has played in terms of how it will be different crowd size, security, competitiveness? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Security I don't think there will be a difference. Crowd-wise I don't think there will be much of a difference. I think the tournaments even when he plays have great fan bases. You look at Arnold Palmer's tournament, you look at Doral, the WGC, you look at all the places he plays have great fan bases. And it's tough not having him here, we all miss him out here. I want him out here playing. But he's got stuff he's got to deal with, and we'll welcome him back with open arms when he comes back. But competitiveness, we all miss him because we all want to play against him and we want to beat him. That's why we all miss him. We don't do it very often, so when we do it, it's kind of special. We want him back as quick as possible. Competitiveness, it's still a very deep TOUR, and I think there's a lot of young guys out here who -- you saw a couple years ago when he was out, you saw Anthony Kim step up and win a couple times, you saw Camilo step up and win a couple times, see guys like that kind of stepping their game up. So I think it's going to be great for the TOUR to kind of see other guys step up and step in that spotlight and play well and hopefully challenge and get out there and win a lot more. Q. On the golf course condition, what's the balance between the course playing so much softer so you're not going to get the roll-out in the fairways but the greens being softer and holding the ball? For a guy like you what's the balance of that? BRANDT SNEDEKER: You know, I like having soft greens because I'm going to be hitting longer irons in than some guys, so it's easier for me in that aspect. That being said, I like firm golf courses where I can have a shorter iron in. It's kind of half one way, half the other. But soft golf courses typically play easier, especially with these greens out here. These greens complexes are so difficult. If they get too soft it'll be hard to control your spin because you'll have pins up on top of ridges and spinning back off and stuff like that. But when these greens are really firm, it makes the golf course play completely different because all of a sudden you're just trying to hit it in the middle of the green and move on, and you don't have birdie chances like you would if the greens were soft. I think that makes it more gettable, being soft, versus -- because the fairways are going to play a little bit wider, greens will be softer, guys will be having for chances fore birdie. So it's playing really firm and fast it'll be tougher. Q. So you wouldn't expect the scores necessarily to be higher just because it's wet? BRANDT SNEDEKER: No, no, not at all. Q. For something I'm working on next week, can you talk about what makes the 10th hole next week so special? BRANDT SNEDEKER: We don't play in very many like that anymore. We don't play many par-4s that everybody can drive. When I say everybody, I'm on the bottom half of the list in driving distance, and I can still get there. It's one of those holes where it's a birdie hole, you think it's a birdie hole, but you can easily make a bogey just as quickly as you can make a birdie. It's a great -- if you lay it up, it's a tough, tough wedge shot; it's almost a tougher wedge shot than it is hitting a driver off the tee. That's what's so hard about that hole. That's why you see very few guys lay up, because it's such a difficult second shot if you do lay up. And if you miss your drive a little bit one way or the other, you just pray you get par and move on. So it's just a great short, strategic hole. We don't see very many like that anymore. I can't think of another hole on TOUR that's like that to be honest with you, that's that demanding. You can see a guy easily walk off with bogey one day and feel like you actually stole one and should have had double, and you can easily walk off with an eagle one day and say, yeah, that's the way you're supposed to play that hole. You see very few holes that play that dramatically different over the course of a week. Q. What did you hit into 18 yesterday? Did you go for it? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I did. I had 220, I think, to the hole, and hit a hybrid just to the right, didn't get up-and-down. Q. Where did the shot end up? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It was just to the right of the green kind of in between the fairway and the bunker in the rough over there. Q. So just short of -- you were short? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Just short of the bunker, yeah. Q. Was there a debate between laying up and going for it? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Not really, no. I was so far back I needed to -- I wasn't going to protect my 8th place or 9th place finish. There's nothing really great there. Q. When you're coming in from like 220 with that front left pin, is it accessible with a hybrid? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, definitely. I think that's one thing about today's technology that's great, those 220, 225 shots where you used to be hitting 2-irons, the ball had no chance of stopping. Now with hybrids we can actually get pretty close and put a lot of height on them and get them to come down real soft. Q. Even with your win, depending on where you travel and where you are at any one time, do you hear people talk just as much about seeing you at Torrey Pines, because that was really your coming-out party? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I get more about Torrey Pines and Augusta than I ever do about my win. So that's a great thing. I think it's -- you'll be a winner if you win, hopefully I'll win a lot about here and people will know me for the wins, but right now being 10-under through 10 out here and shooting 61 my rookie year was something that kind of burst me on the scene a little bit and then obviously Augusta. But I do; I come to San Diego and people recognize me and say hello. Say, we loved seeing you here a couple years ago; play well again. That's great. Any time you get a place like that and a fan base that actually care about you and love seeing you play golf, that's exciting. That's why I like coming here; it's one of my favorite tournaments, and hopefully I can make them -- shoot a couple better than I did last time and actually win the golf tournament so they actually have something to remember me by instead of just finishing third or whatever it was. MARK WILLIAMS: I wanted to ask you about late last year, the Disney Children's Miracle Network, you got to play with your brother, which is pretty unique on the TOUR. What was that experience like, and I gee it's going to happen again this year with Pat Perez and his brother. What advice would you give them, if any? BRANDT SNEDEKER: It was very special. It was a dream come true for us to be able to do that. My brother was a good college golfer and decided to become an attorney and have a stable job instead of coming out here and living and dying by each putt. We had a great time. He played -- considering he actually had a working job, he actually played very well. It was a little nerve wracking first four or five holes. I was more nervous than he was, I think. Just something I can't put into words; something we'll have forever. We have a great photo album for the week, and all of our family was down, just one of those special things you'll never get to do again. For Pat, I'll probably find him out here today and try to talk to him a little bit. It's one of those things where you kind of almost have to -- I said it was great to play with him, but just for his safety, but just so he knew he was getting involved with, but for me I was more worried about him than I was about playing the golf tournament. It's one of those things. But you can't -- Pat, they'll have a good time. Hopefully the temper gets under control and they'll have a good time for two days. Mike is a great guy. Mike has been playing golf. I've known Mike for a long time. He's a terrific golfer. He's just as good as Pat is, so hopefully he can parlay that into some really good golf and end up being out here next year. Q. Are you going to tell Pat that to his face? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yes. I have no problem telling Pat that to his face. I might start running the other way when I tell him. End of FastScripts |
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