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TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIPJune 21, 2013Patrick ReedCROMWELL, CONNECTICUT Q. Back‑to‑back rounds of 66, Patrick, how pleased are you with today's performance? PATRICK REED: You know, I played well. Hit my irons a little better than yesterday. Yesterday I dropped a couple bombs from long distance, so it kept me in it. Today I felt like I hit the ball a lot better, made some good putts. I brought myself where I needed to be, close to the top of the leaderboard. We'll just have to see what it does this afternoon. The course is playing real fair. If you're hitting good tee shots and good iron shots, you're going to be able to post a number. Q. Last start fifth for you in Memphis. How much of it is a carryover from that good play a few weeks ago? PATRICK REED: You know, a lot of it is. We're hitting it great. I've been working on my swing with my swing coach, just fine‑tuning everything, and it's always good to go home and get some rest. We've had a week off, had some good rest, so we're ready to go. Q. Monday qualifier here a year ago. How much have things changed for you and how is your comfort level out here now on TOUR? PATRICK REED: Last year definitely made me realize that once I get out here, just to stick to my own game. A lot last year playing 12 events. Being a rookie this year, I kind of don't feel like a rookie. I feel like I was out here all year last year. And Monday qualifiers, those aren't easy, 18‑hole shootouts. To be able to have four rounds now to play makes life a lot more easy and less stressful. That's for sure. Q. Great playing today. We'll see you on Saturday. PATRICK REED: Thanks. Q. (Inaudible). PATRICK REED: Yeah, you know, any time you shoot under par on any PGA TOUR event is a good round. And last year it did to me on 18 the same thing. I felt like I had a good pitching wedge into the green, felt like I hit a really good golf shot and ended up short. Same thing happened this year. I don't know what it is. I guarantee you tomorrow I will not be short on that hole. Because I've hit that bunker twice. I'm 0 for 2 on that bunker. You know, we played great, hit a lot of good iron shots. Yesterday I made a lot of long putts. Today I felt like I had a lot of short putts I was making for birdie. So it's comforting. Q. Give us some idea of those conditions out there for scoring. PATRICK REED: You know, if you hit the ball in the fairway how pure those greens are, you hit fairways and hit greens you're going to make some putts out there. If people are playing well you're going to go shoot four, 5‑under but at the same time if you're missing fairways you're going to struggle and yesterday I did not hit the thick rough at all. Today I hit it a couple of times and that stuff's thick. It's hard to get out of it. Luckily my short game held up and kept me through it. Q. Approach for the weekend other than not coming up short at 18. PATRICK REED: You know, we're just going to go do the same thing we've done all week, plot ourselves around the golf course, just play smart, steady golf and if we do that, come Sunday hopefully I'll have a chance to win down the stretch. Q. Patrick, best of luck. Patrick, how does your round differ from the round yesterday? The scores are the same. Can you talk about it a little bit? PATRICK REED: I definitely hit my irons a lot better today. Yesterday I made a lot of long putts, and it just seemed that with making a lot of long putts kept me into it yesterday. The good thing yesterday is I did not get in any thick rough. I either hit the fairway, had one fairway bunker and two just semi cuts, which is nice. Today, unfortunately, I hit it a couple of times in the rough. That stuff is gnarly. But at the same time my iron play today was I would say probably three shots better than yesterday. Q. Was there a big difference playing in the morning today compared to the afternoon in yesterday? PATRICK REED: Just the fact that that alarm went off at 4:15 in the morning. That was kind of miserable due to the fact that I'm a huge San Antonio Spurs fan. So I stayed up all night watching that game. Q. So you were in a rotten mood anyways? PATRICK REED: No. I wasn't in a good mood. Q. Now, did your caddie wake you up? PATRICK REED: No. No. My wife stayed up with me. We watched the game and we had to get up early, but with how good the weather is, I don't mind if we playoff in the morning. Q. How is it with your wife caddying with you? What kind of relationship do you have on the course? PATRICK REED: Oh, same relationship as we have at home. We respect each other to the max. She's a huge competitor and athlete. So I believe in everything she says. She knows my golf swing better than I do. There's a lot of times out there I ask her what club should I hit, rather than me saying should I hit this one or that one because she just has a knack for it. She reads putts extremely well. She figures out the wind extremely well. So it's just great teamwork. Q. You played so well in Memphis. How did that momentum carry over through a week off? PATRICK REED: You know, it was good. We went home, had a couple days off to reflect back on the round, some of the things I didn't do well, things I did well. We're just trying to carry it over to this week. And so far we're doing that pretty well. We didn't make many putts at Memphis. We hit the ball really good. This week is kind of opposite. I'm making a lot of putts and hitting my irons. So okay. Q. Does the approach or anything change as you go into the weekend or do you try to approach every day the same? PATRICK REED: No. I definitely just stick to my game plan. Last year, since I played 12 events, that kind of felt like my rookie season, and to go in there and once I made it to the weekend, I pressed, tried to make birdies, tried to really move up the leaderboard and unfortunately that doesn't work. I found that out the hard way last year. So I'm just sticking to my game plan, hitting 3‑woods, 2‑irons, couple drivers out there, just to plot my way around, because like I said, the rough out here is really thick. You get in it, you're not going to be able to go at flags. Q. Did you feel this course was conducive to your style of play? Did you feel like you were right for the showing here? PATRICK REED: You know, we played pretty well last year and we're hitting the ball extremely well. And you know, I really don't see any courses that don't fit my game anymore. Before, I used to be a very aggressive player. Now I've kind of throttled back with a lot of 2‑irons or 3‑woods off the tees. So it doesn't matter what kind of course it is, I have a chance of playing well as long as I putt well. Q. Do you ever feel guilty, like your wife is kind of tiny and she's carrying your big bag? PATRICK REED: No, not really due to the fact the first time we ever carried it, it was 106, humid and sunny, and we once the 18th was done was like, all right, I'm ready for some more, and I was almost done. I could barely move. So I don't feel sorry for her. She should feel sorry for me. Q. Does a professional athlete watch another sport differently than a normal fan would? I'm just wondering like what you do when watching ‑‑ like you've played in front of thousands of people and stuff and what they're going through. PATRICK REED: If I'm not watching golf, I just watch it like any other fan. Golf I can kind of say, okay, I can kind of feed off other players, kind of see what their strategies are, what their strengths and weaknesses are and how the course is playing. No, I just watch like any other fan. I mean I love sports. I can tell you this much. I couldn't tell you much about basketball, football, baseball. I mean I wouldn't know how to play those, at least at that level. That's for sure. Q. What are you going to hate about as a Spurs fan from last night? PATRICK REED: I'm going to hate that they lost it in game 6. They played extremely well and unfortunately, you know, you have LeBron had a second chance to make a 3. He made the clutch shot. Then you had Ray Allen who had the 3, which that's the last guy you want shooting a 3 at the end of the game, especially with the Spurs. I think he did that a lot when he was with the Celtics. Q. Your performance today obviously very strong putts you in contention for the weekend. What's the confidence level? PATRICK REED: You know, we're playing well. I'm just going to stick to what my swing coach and I have been doing, keep on trying to improve on the golf swing. Yesterday I didn't hit my irons very solid, but I made a lot of long putts. Today I felt like I hit my irons a lot better. You just gotta stay out of the rough. If I do that, I feel like I have a good shot, but at the same time you just have to take it day by day. Q. With your wife how much of a calming influence is it having someone like that on your bag, taking you aside at times, trying to calm you a bit when the nerves kind of show up? PATRICK REED: Oh, it's a ton. She's probably the calmest person I know.  Doesn't matter if I make birdie or if I make bogey, you can't really tell, at least the way her demeanor is. On the other hand, you can. So it's good to have that balance on the bag, have someone really calm and someone that can get going. And it's been great. She's a huge competitor and she's just like me, wants to win. Q. How great is the relationship not only now you get to travel with her, get to be with her instead of being away for weeks at a time, you're there experiencing your golfing career with her right by your side? PATRICK REED: You know, that was a huge part of it. I see a lot of these guys out here who might see their families once or twice every six weeks, seven weeks, and you know, I get to see mine every day. So it's a comforting factor for me because I also know that she's all right every time, every second and to spend a whole life with her is perfect. Q. Is there anything specific that helped you get on this run that you're on now, that you can point to now? PATRICK REED:  Yeah. Just stick to the game plans, you know, and not being aggressive, at least off the tees, getting the ball in the fairways because I feel like my iron play is normally extremely well. That's the main thing. If you hit your irons really well and leave yourself a lot of putts, you're going to make some. Q. Did you approach the season with an urgency? PATRICK REED: Not really. I kind of ‑‑ I mean once I switched to Callaway at Byron, that's when I kind of had a sense of urgency due to the fact that we were borderline around that 125 number on the Money List, and hopefully we can produce a really good weekend and maybe come out a winner. Q. And switched when exactly? PATRICK REED: The Tuesday of Byron Nelson. Q. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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