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FEDEX ST. JUDE CLASSICJune 5, 2013Brandt SnedekerMEMPHIS, TENNESSEE BRANDT SNEDEKER: This is a very big event for me being as close to Nashville as I can get, so Memphis feels like a home tournament to me. Obviously, being FedExCup Champion, it holds a special meaning for me this year because I'm proud to have that title next to my name. So I realize I'm representing them a little bit this week. It's a great golf course. I really love Southwind. I played a lot of junior golf tournaments here, and I played every year here of my career. I love being here, it's been good to me, and I feel like the course is in great shape. All that being said, I'm excited to play. I feel like I have a good chance of playing well this week, and my golf game, even though it didn't look great last week, it feels like it's playing well right now, and I'm excited with what this week can hold especially considering my past success here. Q. Can you talk about your policy about playing the week before majors?  Is it something you like to do? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Kind of changes, depending on the major. I feel like this is a great tune‑up for next week because this is a golf course that par is a good score. You go around here and you shoot par, generally in the past, greens are firm, fairways are tough to hit, par is a pretty good round of golf around here. So it gets you in the mindset of appreciating making pars when you have to. This golf course offers a par 70 which kind of plays into a U.S. Open kind of atmosphere. Only two par‑5s, so you go out there on the par‑4s and par‑3s and have to play well. As a general rule is I typically for the Masters I never play the week before; British Open, I'd typically never play the week before; PGA, I always do. So I have two and two where I play the week before. So it just kind of depends on everything rolling into it. This sets up perfectly for me, being in Tennessee and a great venue like Southwind kind of preps me for a good week at the U.S. Open. Q. Could you explain the injections that you are now having to give yourself? And just the whole process of in April you said the good news was you're fine, the bad news was they couldn't find anything. So obviously the situation has been resolved. BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, I've had more tests and stuff run on me than I ever want to have run again. So I go from I'm okay and everything's okay to just this rare, I don't think it's shorter. It's just this rare thing that I have. It's just a weird thing I've got to deal with and something I've got to deal with. It's like taking an insulin shot and taking it every day. I've got to travel with it. I've got to keep it refrigerated. It's probably the biggest pain of my life keeping is keeping it refrigerated all the time. So I'm traveling with ice packs and all that stuff. So that's the biggest thing to me is the logistics of keeping this thing with me at all times. But it doesn't hurt really at all, and it's something very minor that I do. But it hopefully will have long‑term benefits to me. It's a medication called Forteo. It's approved by the PGA TOUR. It's hopefully long‑term effects can regrow some of my bone, specifically in my rib cage where they're very, very brittle comparatively speaking to the rest of my bones. So they feel like this can maybe increase my bone mass 20 to 30% which would get me back to a normal level if I have success with it. So hopefully it will have the same effect on me. Q. Can you talk about what that condition has done in terms of how you practice? Have you had to practice less? Are you more thoughtful? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, the last two years my practice has probably been cut in half just because of what I need to do to stay healthy and stay on top of my game. So that's had an effect on me. But if you look at it the way I look at it, ever since I had my first kid, Lilly, I've cut my practice down dramatically since then. Even the first time around, I'm playing the best golf of my career, so I feel like there might be something to this. The fresher I stay and the less balls I hit, I focus more on my short game, focusing more on staying sharp on the golf course and my strategy involved in every golf course I play. It kind of helps me get into the swing a lot better and into contention a little bit more than I have in the past. Q. The less practice, can you talk about how you've kind of jived that with Todd and trying to understand, because most coaches want you to practice more? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Todd's been great about it. He kind of helped design my swing around what limitations I have. Between having a couple of hip surgeries and now having the problem with my rib cage, we're working on very doable things where I don't have to put a lot of reps in. My swing's not going to change a lot right now. I'm not going to redo what I do. So just little minor stuff that we work on, a lot of swinging in mirrors and stuff like that where I can keep the feel and do it where I'm not hitting a lot of the balls and doing a lot of repetition. Just trying to do more playing, get out there and playing nine holes where I'm maybe making 30 swings in nine holes. I can see results really easily out there instead of hitting balls for three hours. That is the philosophy we've taken on it. Q. Earlier in the year you said the first three months are like waking up every day in a dream world. What have the last three months been like? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Reality. Golf does a great job of you get numbers where you feel like you can do no wrong, and you get moments where you feel like you can do no right. And golf has an unbelievable ability that the minute you think you've got to figured out, to slap you in the face and show what you reality is. So I realize that. I realize there are going to be up and downs, especially with the way I play golf. I'm going to have runs. I told everybody at the end of the year, I'm not naive. I didn't think I was going to play that way all year long. I'm going to have ups and downs. I've been on a lot of ups and I've kind of been on a downward trend right now. But I really feel like I'm on my way back up again. I feel like I'm on top of this and it's going the right direction. I really think these next couple weeks will be a couple of good weeks for me. Q. Can you just go over this medication that you're taking; is it a syringe? Are you having to put it into your stomach, and in the morning? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, and I do it at night before I go to bed. Q. Have you had to fly commercially? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah. Q. Has that been a hassle getting through? BRANDT SNEDEKER: Just put it in my luggage. I have freezer packs that I put it in it stays up to 11 hours. British Open might be an issue. I haven't figured out how we're going to get it over there. We're working on that as we speak. So that will be the first problem I see arising. But, yeah, the hardest part is transporting the needles. Making sure you can buy them at Walgreens. It's about as low maintenance you can get for the amount of stuff you have to do for it. Q. In this year of deer antler spray on a scale of 1 to 10 when had you to make that call to find out if it was approved, how nervous were you? BRANDT SNEDEKER: I talked to my doctor, and he said this is stuff I want to put on. I said that's great, but I have to make a couple calls first to find out if it's doable. It was not long after the whole Vijay incident. So I called the TOUR and double checked three times since then to make sure we're still okay because I don't want to go down that road. So we're good, officially. Double checked, triple checked, we're good. I'm getting ready to get tested here shortly too, so you'll have evidence here next week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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